With optics, nothing is simple.

When answering the question: “What is an f-stop in digital photography?” getting your head around the concept can be daunting. This is because when talking about lenses, one cannot avoid talking about the complicated and intricate science of optics. But we are photographers, and I will only get into some of the details so you can grasp what I will eventually be simplifying.

Therefore, for the sake of being thorough in this blog post, I will go about telling what you really need to know. To get you guys up to speed, I’m going to show you a skippable list. You can decide what you need to know to better your photography skills. I will be giving you:

• A technical definition
• A Photography friendly definition
• The essentials of what you really need to know

A technical definition of f-stop

The F-stop is also known as the f-number or f-ratio. In photography, the f-number of a camera lens is the ratio of the system’s focal length or capacity to bend light to the diameter of the entrance pupil of the lens. It is also known as the focal ratio and is very important in photography because it is a way of measuring the absolute lens speed; increasing the f-number is referred to as stopping down.

Here is the f-number equation

The f-number is the reciprocal of the relative aperture

N = f/D

Where in f is the focal length, and D is the entrance pupil diameter. For instance, if you have a lens with a 35mm focal length and the pupil opening (or aperture) is 27mm, your f-number will be roughly 1.3

A Photography friendly definition of F-stop

All lenses are defined by their focal length (measured in millimeters) and their maximum iris (aperture) opening or F-stop. Because of the ratio equation that we just mentioned, remember that the lower your F-number is, the more light your lens will be able to capture.

What is most important to remember for photographers is that f-Stop affects two crucial aspects of your photography – depth of field and lens light. Also, remember that all lenses offer different f-stop adjustments on the aperture or f-ring on the lens. Where lenses differ will always be with their max f-stop. Lenses with a lower max f-stop, in my experience, are always more expensive.

Depth-of-field and f-stop

A lens that is a 50mm f/4.5 will not be as luminous as a lens that is a 50mm f/1.2. 

For all intents and purposes, depth-of-field is how much behind and in front of an in-focus point, objects are in focus. If an F-stop is low, depth-of-field will be shallow. Shallow depth-of-field means that objects between the focus point and the lens will mostly be out of focus. The same goes for objects past the focus point. Those objects will also fall out of focus.

• A lens with an f of 2.0 will have shallow depth-of-field
• A lens with an f of 11 will have a high depth of field. i.e., everything before and after the focus point of your subject will all be in focus.

What photographers need to know about F-stop

Depth-of-field: Good for some and bad for others

So the real question is this. What f-stop opening is more desirable for photographers? Both high depth of field and low depth of field can be desirable. It all depends on what type of photography you would like to get into. However, having a lens that has maximum light capability is always better.

For instance: Portrait and wedding photographers like to have a subject in focus with a bit of a dreamy background to give a sort of fantasy or dreamy effect. It is sometimes referred to as bokeh.

Sports photographers and wildlife photographers capture action and many times need a margin of error in their focus. A higher f-number allows for more in the frame to be in-focus even when you are not totally of the mark.

f-stop and the light tradeoff

Because lenses with low f-numbers make the iris (aperture) bigger, more light is exposed to the camera film or camera image sensor. This allows you to sacrifice less on your ISO sensitivity and shutter speed. There will be more on the dance between these 3 settings (ISO, Shutter speed, and F-stop) in another blog post. But, for now, know that getting a very “open” lens lets you make fewer sacrifices on other crucial camera settings.

Conclusion

It must be noted that photographers all refer to f as actually BEING aperture. This is not completely exact. However, this reference serves the purpose of photographers and, in my humble opinion, can be made by a photographer who doesn’t want to lose credibility.

F-stop is a lens-specific setting. But this setting is so important in the trilogy of camera settings. Both adjustments of opening up “f” or closing down “f” have benefits.  Settings like ISO and shutter speed are one-sided in their adjustments. I other blog posts, I will look at ISO and shutter speed, the more artistic of the technical camera adjustments.

What do you think?

Have you guys learned anything from this post? Are there other photography topics you would like me to explain? I love getting feedback from readers! Comment below.

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