Though you have a smartphone whose camera boasts a higher megapixel count, it’s not guaranteed that your phone can click awesome pictures. Like, I always say, the performance of a camera depends on many things. One of them is Aperture. So, In this article, I will try to explain What is Aperture and How it works in the easiest way possible.

What is Aperture?

In simple words, An aperture is a hole in front of your camera lens through which light enters into the camera.

Either it’s your eye’s retina or the image sensor, light is very important for the formation of an image. If you can relate this concept with our eyes, it would become much easier to understand.

As pupil controls the amount of light enters into our eyes, the aperture does the same thing in working of a camera. Larger the aperture, more light will enter into the camera and hence brighter will be the image and vice versa.

According to experts, Aperture is one of the three pillars of photography. The other two are ISO and Shutter speed. Aperture is not just a hole, it’s also responsible for some major things like blurring the background or focusing something.

Also Read: 5 Best Selfie Editing Apps For Android

What Aperture Does?

Aperture can be expressed in f-numbers. These f-numbers are known as f-stops and used to describe the size of the aperture or how much open or close the aperture is.

A smaller f-stop means a larger aperture while a larger f-stop means a smaller aperture. Let me explain this to you.

what is aperture in a camera
Source: Wikipedia

We usually see the aperture in the form of f/1.7 or f/2.0. Here, f represents the focal length.

As we know, the result of a/10 is greater than the result of a/20. Thus, when the value in the denominator is small, the size of the aperture will be large and when the value of the same is large, the size of the aperture will be small. For example – f/1.7 is larger than f/2.0.

Aperture is also responsible for the depth of field and blurry background.

For those who don’t know, depth of field is an area of the image that appears sharp while others remain out of focus. Look at the image below. For example, If a camera has an aperture of f/16 (larger f-number = smaller aperture) will bring every area of an image in focus.

what is aperture
Blurry Background

While a camera with an aperture of f/1.5 (smaller f-number = larger aperture) will focus on the foreground objects and thus make the background blurry.

what is aperture in a camera
Depth of Field

If you liked this article, share it with your friends. And, do let us know your camera’s aperture in the comments section below. For more, stay tuned with Tech4Fresher.

Subham is the founder of Tech4Fresher. A software engineer by profession and a passionate content creator who loves to educate people about the latest technologies, innovative gadgets, software, applications, etc.

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