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Using wide apertures

Techniques

24 October 2007 09:52

The widest aperture on your lens (indicated by a low f number such as f/2.8 or f/4) allows the maximum amount of light to reach the camera’s sensor. This setting allows you to use the fastest shutter speed available in the given lighting conditions.

A wide aperture is excellent for shooting in low light when you have to handhold the camera and can’t use either flash or a tripod (such as in a museum or church). In the wedding picture here, despite using an aperture of f/2.8, we still had to set the ISO to 640 to achieve a shutter speed fast enough to handhold the camera without camera shake. Setting a wide aperture normally gives shallow depth-of-field, but using a wide-angle lens and keeping some distance from the subject minimises this problem.

Setting a wide aperture also helps you to get shutter speeds fast enough to freeze subject movement. This is especially useful for sports, wildlife and action photography when you need these fast shutter speeds in a wide range of lighting conditions. Using an aperture of f/4 allowed us to use a 1/500sec shutter speed to capture this fast-moving bird in flight.