If someone tells you to use a large aperture, they’re recommending an f-stop like f/1.4, f/2, or f/2.8. If someone tells you to use a small aperture, they’re recommending an f-stop like f/8, f/11, or f/16.

Many P&S digital cameras, such as the Nikon COOLPIX models and some Nikon DSLRs offer a Macro Shooting Mode, which is usually denoted by a flower icon. Some COOLPIX cameras even offer a Macro Shooting Mode that allows you to get as close as 0.4-inches to your subjects. With these cameras, the Macro Shooting Mode tells the lens to focus closer than it normally would; and set a wider aperture, to provide the soft blurred background often seen with Macro images.

This is very interesting! As you can see, in the f/4 photo, only a thin slice of the lizard’s head appears sharp. The background of the photo is very blurry. This is known as depth of field.

The second page of our aperture article dives into every single effect of aperture in your photos. It includes things like diffraction, sunstars, lens aberrations, and so on. However, as important as all that is, it’s not what you really need to know – especially at first.

If you have a 50mm f/1.4 lens, the largest aperture you can use is f/1.4. Professional constant aperture zoom lenses like a 24-70mm f/2.8 will have f/2.8 as their maximum aperture at every focal length. Whereas cheaper consumer-grade lenses such as 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 will have their maximum aperture change depending on focal length. At 18mm, the maximum is at f/3.5, while at 55mm, it changes to f/5.6. In between is a gradual shift from one to the other.

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Thank you so much for explaining this topic in a way I finally understand ! I have just started photography using a Nikon d3200 with 70-300mm lens primarily for wildlife .. I wish I had read this article before I started !

This is why portrait photographers love f-stops like f/1.4, f/2, or f/2.8. They give you a pleasant “shallow focus” effect, where only a thin slice of your subject is sharp (such as your subject’s eyes). You can see how that looks here:

Nikon micro lenses include a variety of AF and AF-S lenses, a DX lens, (designed specifically for use with cameras that utilize the DX format image sensor) manual focus lenses and PC-E or Perspective Control lenses, and a DX lenses.

Take a look inside your camera lens. If you shine a light at the proper angle, you’ll see something that looks like this:

Photographers generally don’t care as much about the smallest or “minimum” aperture that the lens allows, which is why manufacturers don’t put that information in the name of the lens. However, if it matters to you, you will always be able to find this specification on the manufacturer’s website. A lens’s smallest aperture is typically something like f/16, f/22, or f/32.

VERY helpful article for this novice. As you are in Colorado, perhaps you can help on this topic: I’m going on a northern lights tour in a few weeks, and am considering getting a camera better than my iPhone. I’ve read many articles recommending various cameras (Sony a6000 keeps coming up), but then when looking at specs, most [affordable in my budget] cameras state an operating temperature only down to 32f. I’ll be in Norway with tens in the teens and 20’s. Are the manufacturer specs to be taken seriously for real-world use? Would I ruin a camera using it in temps 20 degrees cooler than its rating?

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Lindsay is a former Sr. Product Manager, Pro DSLR for Nikon. Early in his career Lindsay served as general manager of Nikon House in New York City's Rockefeller Center, where he hosted some of the world's finest photographers as well as photo enthusiasts and photo writers, editors and educators from around the world. He has held technical, marketing and product management positions for the company, and for 19 years was a contributing writer, photographer and editor of Nikon World magazine.

The f-stop, which is also known as the f-number, is the ratio of the lens focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil. If you did not understand that, don’t worry, because there is a much easier explanation of it for beginners. In very simple language, f-stop is the number that your camera shows you when you change the size of the lens aperture.

You can think of depth of field as a glass window pane that intersects with your subject. Any part of your photo that intersects with the window glass will be sharp. The thickness of the glass changes depending upon your aperture. At something like f/4, the glass is relatively thin. At something like f/32, the glass is very thick. Also, depth of field falls off gradually rather than dropping sharply, so the window glass analogy is definitely a simplification.

Using a short telephoto macro lens, such as the 200mm Micro-NIKKOR lets you achieve life size reproduction of your subject without having to get as close as with the 60mm Micro-NIKKOR—ideal for shooting insects or other creatures that you may not want to get too close to.

Thanks for the explanation. As a newbie I could not figure out why the aperture number increased in value even though the opening decreased. Knowing now that the value is actually a fraction has eliminated the confusion.

By that same logic, an aperture of f/2 is much larger than an aperture of f/16. If you ever read an article online that ignores this simple fact, you’ll be very confused.

Speaking of D-Movies many Nikon DSLR cameras can record in HD or Full HD video. Just as you can use a Micro-NIKKOR lens to make eye-catching still photographs, you can also create unique D-Movies that showcase your subjects, reproduced up to life size.

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Usually, the sharpest f-stop on a lens will occur somewhere in the middle of this range — f/4, f/5.6, or f/8. However, sharpness isn’t as important as things like depth of field, so don’t be afraid to set other values when you need them. There’s a reason why your lens has so many possible aperture settings.

As you would expect, there are differences between photos taken with a large aperture versus photos taken with a small aperture. Aperture size has a direct impact on the brightness of a photograph, with larger apertures letting in more light into the camera compared to smaller ones. However, that isn’t the only thing that aperture affects.

That is an important concept! Often, you’ll hear other photographers talking about large versus small apertures. They will tell you to “stop down” (close) or “open up” (widen) the aperture blades for a particular photo.

These blades form a small hole, almost circular in shape — your aperture. They also can open and close, changing the size of the aperture.

As we have previously defined, aperture is basically a hole in your camera’s lens that lets light pass through. It’s not a particularly complicated topic, but it helps to have a good mental concept of aperture blades in the first place.

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Photo taken with a 105mm Micro-NIKKOR lens. The subject, a Praying mantis, was illuminated using Nikon's Close-up Speedlight system.

A true macro lens—Nikon's designation is Micro-NIKKOR—allows you to you take photographs that are 1:2 or 1:1 reproduction, which is ½ life size to life size respectively without the need for any additional accessories. A picture is described as life size when the image size  is equal to the subject size. At their closest focusing distances, most lenses provide approximately 3.2 to 5X—hardly enough to fill the frame with really small subjects. Micro-NIKKOR lenses are popular because they offer tremendous versatility, high reproduction ratios, ease-of-use and outstanding value. Micro-NIKKOR lenses will designate on the lens barrel the maximum reproduction ratio (1:2 or 1:1).

Macro photography often entails the use of a tripod, because when you're shooting so close to your subject, the depth of field is often reduced to millimeters instead of inches or feet. To ensure sharp images, you'll want to place your DSLR on a tripod for added stability. If a tripod isn't an option, try one of the Micro-NIKKOR lenses that feature Nikon's VR (Vibration Reduction) image stabilization. These lenses allow hand held shooting with the ability to shoot at up to 4 stops slower than otherwise possible; great for achieving greater depth-of-field and sharper pictures or D-Movies.

You already know the answer to this question, because aperture is a fraction. Clearly, 1/8 is larger than 1/22. So, f/8 is the larger aperture.

And remember too, that just because a Micro-NIKKOR lens gives you the ability to create photographs up to life size (1:1), you don't always have to use the lens as such. In addition to macro capabilities, the lenses are also fully functional lenses at their prime focal length; so the AF-S DX Micro-NIKKOR 85mm f/3.5G ED VR can be used for portraiture or action photography and D-Movies when used on a DX-format DSLR, the PC-E Micro-NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8D ED can be used for architecture or landscape photography or D-Movies, and the Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8 lens is a great portrait lens for FX-format DSLRs-what all of the lenses have in common is that they also offer extremely close macro shooting capabilities.

For example, say that you have an 80-200mm f/2.8 lens fully zoomed out to 80mm. If your f-stop is set to f/4, the diameter of the aperture blades in your lens will look exactly 20 millimeters across (80mm / 4), whereas at f/16, the diameter will be reduced to mere 5 millimeters (80mm / 16).

On the flip side, you should be able to see why landscape photographers prefer using f-stops like f/8, f/11, or f/16. If you want your entire photo sharp out to the horizon, this is what you should use.

Quite simply, the “f” stands for “focal length”. When you substitute focal length into the fraction, you’re solving for the diameter of the aperture blades in your lens. (Or, more accurately, the diameter that the blades appear to be when you look through the front of the lens).

Adjusting your aperture is one of the best tools you have to capture the right images. You can adjust it by entering your camera’s aperture-priority mode or manual mode, both of which give you free rein to pick whatever aperture you like. That is why I only ever shoot in aperture-priority or manual modes!

Macrophotography

Fashion photography with Dixie Dixon, Visual Storytelling with Joe McNally, Wedding photography with Jerry Ghionis and Sports photography with Rod Mar

You can think of an aperture of f/8 as the fraction 1/8 (one-eighth). An aperture of f/2 is equivalent to 1/2 (one-half). An aperture of f/16 is 1/16 (one-sixteenth). And so on.

Luckily, you have the building blocks. Aperture and f-stop aren’t complicated topics, but they can seem a bit counterintuitive for photographers who are just starting out. Hopefully, this article clarified some of the confusion, and you now have a better understanding of the fundamentals of aperture.

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Instead, just know that the two biggest reasons to adjust your aperture are to change brightness (exposure) and depth of field. Learn those first. They have the most obvious impact on your images, and you can always read about the more minor effects later.

Macro photography is one of the most interesting types of photography, as it lets you show detail that is otherwise not easily seen by the naked eye.

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Fashion photography with Dixie Dixon, Visual Storytelling with Joe McNally, Wedding photography with Jerry Ghionis and Sports photography with Rod Mar

These are the main aperture “stops,” but most cameras and lenses today let you set some values in between, such as f/1.8 or f/3.5.

Photo taken with a 105mm Micro-NIKKOR lens. The subject, a Praying mantis, was illuminated using Nikon's Close-up Speedlight system.

Nikon's Micro-NIKKOR lenses are designed to perform their best from infinity all the way down to their closest focusing distances, in the case of the AF-S Micro-NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G as close as 6 inches. This close focusing distance is known as free working distance and is what distinguishes Micro-NIKKOR lenses from one another. Moving in extremely close to the subject using a Micro-NIKKOR lens lets you to fill the entire frame with your subject, allowing you to expand your artistic vision.

I always find that it’s easiest to understand depth of field by looking at photos, such as the comparison below. In this case, I used a relatively large aperture of f/4 for the photo on the left, and an incredibly small aperture of f/32 for the photo on the right. The differences should be obvious:

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Since people care so much about maximum aperture, camera manufacturers decided to include that number in the name of the lens. For example, one of my favorite lenses is the Nikon 20mm f/1.8G. The largest aperture it offers is f/1.8.

As a beginner photographer, you might have heard of such terms as f-stop or f-number and wondered what they actually mean. In this article, we will dive into these in detail and talk about how to use them for your photography.

Nikon offers two close-up Speedlight systems which are great for supplementing available light when shooting macro photographs. The R1 Wireless Close-up Speedlight System is configured for i-TTL enabled cameras that feature a built-in Commander function and R1C1 Wireless Close-up Speedlight System is configured for iTTL enabled cameras without a built-in Commander function.

That’s a great question. I constantly use my cameras in colder weather than 32F, no matter what they’re rated for. Even sub-zero temperatures (still talking Fahrenheit) don’t concern me, although I don’t think the camera warranty would still apply if something did go wrong in those temperatures.

A lot of photographers ask me an interesting question: What does the “f” stand for in f-stop, or in the name of aperture (like f/8)?

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Of course, putting everything into practice is another matter. Even if this entire article makes sense for now, you’ll still need to take hundreds of photos in the field, if not thousands, before these concepts become completely intuitive.

Below are some examples of photographs captured at different f-stops from f/2.8 to f/16, to give you an idea of how they are used in the field:

The other more important impact is depth of field – the amount of your photo that appears to be sharp from front to back. For example, the two illustrations below have different depths of field, depending on the size of aperture:

One of my friends once had the mirror of his DSLR break in extremely cold weather – not a problem with mirrorless cameras, of course.

Typically, the “maximum” aperture of a lens, which is also often referred to as “wide-open” aperture, will be something like f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2, f/2.8, f/3.5, f/4, or f/5.6.

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A lot of photographers really care about the maximum aperture that their lenses offer. Sometimes, they’ll pay hundreds of extra dollars just to buy a lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 rather than f/4, or f/1.4 rather than f/1.8.

You might have seen this in your camera before. On your camera’s LCD screen or viewfinder, the f-stop looks like this: f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, and so on. Sometimes, it will be shown without a slash in between like f2.8, or with a capital “F” letter in the front like F2.8, which means the exact same thing as f/2.8. These are just examples of different f-stops, and you might come across much smaller numbers like f/1.2 or much larger ones like f/64.

Why is your aperture written like that? What does something like “f/8” even mean? Actually, this is one of the most important parts about aperture: it’s written as a fraction.

Unfortunately, you can’t just set any f-stop value that you want. At some point, the aperture blades in your lens won’t be able to close any smaller, or they won’t be able to open any wider.

Why is large maximum aperture in a lens so important? Because a lens with a larger maximum aperture lets more light into the camera. For example, a lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 lets in twice as much light when compared to a lens with a maximum aperture of f/4.0. This difference could be a big deal when shooting in low-light conditions.

This is a cool concept. It also makes it easy to visualize why an aperture of f/4 would be larger than an aperture of f/16. Physically, at f/4, your aperture blades are open much wider, as shown below:

I'm Spencer Cox, a landscape photographer based in Colorado. I started writing for Photography Life a decade ago, and now I run the website in collaboration with Nasim. I've used nearly every digital camera system under the sun, but for my personal work, I love the slow-paced nature of large format film. You can see more at my personal website and my not-exactly-active Instagram page.

Hopefully, you know how fractions work. 1/2 cup of sugar is much more than 1/16 cup of sugar. A 1/4 pound burger is larger than a 1/10 pound slider.