
Note that there are other variables that also affect exposure (shutter speed and ISO), so aperture/f-stop isn’t the only way to brighten or darken a photo. That way, the photo will be brightened, and they’ll create well-exposed images. If the photo is looking too dark, they can widen the aperture by dialing in a lower f-stop. So photographers use different apertures to control the exposure of their images. While a narrower aperture lets in very little light, creating a darker photo. The f-stop that you choose directly affects the exposure (overall brightness) of your photos.īecause a wide aperture (such as one at f-stop 2.8) lets in a lot of light, creating a brighter photo. A low-numbered f-stop (for example, f/1.8) locks in a very wide aperture, which lets in a lot of light a high-numbered f-stop (for example, f/22) locks in a very narrow aperture, which lets in very little light.

It produces a very shallow depth of field–so that pictures taken with an f-stop 2.8 have an intensely blurred background, like this: F-Stop ExplainedĪ camera’s f-stop corresponds to the size of a lens’s aperture–that is, the size of the hole in the lens that lets in light.į-stops are generally written like this: f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, etc., and can span a range from around f/1.2 to f/32 (though there are some lenses that allow for even more extreme apertures).Īs you change the f-stop on your camera, the aperture changes with it.


An f-stop of 2.8, also written as f/2.8, corresponds to a wide aperture.
