Aperture is the hole in your lens that controls how much light hits the sensor. Lower f-numbers mean bigger openings and more light; higher numbers mean smaller openings and less light. A wide aperture blurs the background, while a narrow one keeps more of the scene sharp.
You're learning photography, but you have no idea what aperture actually means. Aperture basically just means hole. So this is the size of the hole in your lens that allows the light to come in and strike your sensor in order to make a photo. The bigger that hole is, the more light that's coming in. The smaller that hole is, the less light that's coming in. It's pretty straightforward when we say it that way, but in practice, Understanding aperture is not easy.
I don't understand.
That's because if you look at the numbers on your camera, often called f-numbers or f-stops, those numbers seem counterintuitive. The smaller that number, the more light that comes in. The larger that number, the less light that comes in. The reason for that is because aperture is fractions. If you look at those numbers and they go f/4, f/5.6, 8, 11, 16. It all seems really random. Don't worry about that. Just understand that the bigger the number, the less light. The smaller the number, the more light that you have coming in. Now, the other thing that aperture controls is how much stuff is in focus in front of and behind your subject. I'm not going to explain the complicated geometry that goes into why aperture works this way. But understand this, the larger that opening is, the less stuff appears sharp in front of and behind your subject. Whereas the smaller that opening is, the more stuff around your subject is going to look sharper. Now, aperture is only one aspect that controls what we call the depth of field. Oh, that's deep. So subscribe for future videos where I'll go into more detail on depth of field.
