F-Stop Changes in Snow

The F-stop, or aperture setting, of a camera controls how large or small the hole is that the light passes through. This also affects the depth of field in the image.

Here is a set of examples taken on a snowy day in January. The camera is my Canon S-100 mounted on a tripod. It was in the same spot, with the same lighting, and the camera was on aperture priority. So with each shot I solely changed the aperture setting, and the camera then adjusted the shutter speed and ISO sensitivity to match that wider or smaller hole.


F-8


F-7.1


F-6.3


F-5.6


F-5.0


F-4.5


F-4.0


F-3.5


F-3.2


F-2.8


F-2.5


F-2.2


F-2.0

So the differences are fairly subtle. If you put the F8 and the F2 side by side, you can see slight differences in the image.



This is the full range of what I can do with f-stop at "no zoom" on this camera. Note if I do zoom out to 5.0x, that I can only do F8, F7.1, and F6.3. I cannot do any smaller numbers.


5x zoom at F-8


5x zoom at F-7.1


5x zoom at F-6.3

F-Stop in Digital Photography

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