Relationship between Aperture and Shutter Speed & Depth of Field:
Before i can go in depth about the relationship between shutter speed and aperture i need to ensure the meaning of both terms is fully understood and how their functions affect the image formed by the camera.
Aperture and shutter speed only apply to single lens reflex cameras, point and shoot cameras as well as disposable cameras have automatically adjusted settings.
Aperture and shutter speed only apply to single lens reflex cameras, point and shoot cameras as well as disposable cameras have automatically adjusted settings.
Aperture:
- Aperture is the part of the camera that controls how much light enters the opening of lens and the sensors within the camera itself. Aperture is controlled using dials on the camera although it is the lens that controls the f stop.
- The lower the f stop, the wider the hole of the lens is, thus allowing more light to enter the lens, brightening the image.
- Aperture is also responsible for controlling depth of field.
- In this photograph is used a shutter speed of 1/30 second and aperture of f/16
In this photography i used a shutter speed of 1/30 second and an aperture of f/29
In this photo i used a shutter speed of 1/30 second and an aperture of f/4.5
- You can see that a decreasing f stop results in more light being taken in by the sensor of a DSLR. This is due to the lens opening up more as the f stop is decreased.
Depth of field:
- Depth of field is: when a lens is focused on an object, there is some distance in front of the object and some behind which will also be acceptably sharp. This zone of sharpness which includes the subject is called the depth of field.
- Depth of field essentially controls clarity of focus between the foreground and back ground.
- Small f stop = shallow depth of field.
- large f stop = deep depth of field.
From left to right:
1.
f/16
2.
f/5.6
3.
f/5.6
1.
f/16
2.
f/5.6
3.
f/5.6
- Using the aperture priority setting on my camera mean that i could change the aperture whilst retaining a balanced image. You can see that f/16 photograph gives a wider depth of field than the other two f/5.6 images, this is shown by the fact that all 3 of the film containers being in focus in the first photo, whereas they are not in the other two.
Shutter Speed:
Shutter speed controls the amount of time the lens allows light to enter it.
In the simplest way possible, shutter speed is how long the shutter takes to capture the image. an increase in shutter speed (shorter time) will cause the image formed to be darker than an image with a slower shutter speed as more light is allowed to enter the lens with a slow shutter speed.
The speed is how long the lens is open for when taking a photo. This affects how long the sensors in a DSLR are exposed to light, affecting the brightness of the image.
At night a slow shutter speed is used because there is less natural light causing an image to be very dark if a standard day-time shutter speed was to be used. this is why a tripod is essential for nighttime photography otherwise images will be blurred due to the use of a slow shutter. without a tripod images taken at night would be extremely blurred or very dark.
The diagram below shows how light intensity increases with an increase in shutter speed.
In the simplest way possible, shutter speed is how long the shutter takes to capture the image. an increase in shutter speed (shorter time) will cause the image formed to be darker than an image with a slower shutter speed as more light is allowed to enter the lens with a slow shutter speed.
The speed is how long the lens is open for when taking a photo. This affects how long the sensors in a DSLR are exposed to light, affecting the brightness of the image.
At night a slow shutter speed is used because there is less natural light causing an image to be very dark if a standard day-time shutter speed was to be used. this is why a tripod is essential for nighttime photography otherwise images will be blurred due to the use of a slow shutter. without a tripod images taken at night would be extremely blurred or very dark.
The diagram below shows how light intensity increases with an increase in shutter speed.
- After setting my camera's aperture to f/16 i then set my shutter speed to 1/30 seconds. The result is the photo on the left hand side.
- The second photo is f/16 with a shutter speed of 0"8 seconds.
- This shows that the longer the lens is open, the more the cameras sensors are exposed to light, therefore increasing the exposure. The second photograph is clearly over-exposed.
Relationship Between Shutter Speed and Aperture:
They are both inversely proportional to one another. In simpler terms the two have to be balanced to ensure an image is not over exposed or underexposed to light.
- When the aperture is widened the shutter speed is increased to balance it out and visa versa.