Exploring Aperture

To start off, I just want to say that for me, understanding the actual concepts of apertures and f-stops, particularly the relation between the two terms...it took a hot minute. I figured out what the buttons did on my camera, but I was still confused as hell about the term f-stop, because why is it even called that? Apparently the f stands for focal length, and yeah.

I took a series of photos the other day and while I got to pick and choose the best of the bunch, the photo below I think displays all the things I'm supposed to be learning about this week.

Depth of Field 

Sharpness

Dynamic Range

Ok, there's more things I'm supposed to be learning, but those were the top three for this particular assignment. 

I haven't learned how to talk about photos like a Photography Elitist yet, so bear with me. I think this image was the first one I took that I actually got the results I was looking for. I fiddled around with aperture and f-stops for a long time and some other setting that affected exposure and I have no idea what it is (it's not ISO, because I understand THAT), before I finally got the leaf in focus and the pot blurry.

Looking at the image properties, these were the settings I apparently used while in aperture priority mode.

F-stop: f/3.2

ISO speed: ISO-160 (it was on auto I think)

There was also something about exposure bias, so maybe that was the one I was fiddling with. That was set to -0.3 step. It did seem to make a difference depending on if I was in shade or direct sunlight, with the negative numbers leaning towards underexposed. 

So not only does this image have a good depth of field, there's also some dynamic range going on (which I take it is kind of like value in art? Another new term for me.) with the highlights in the background. Also I like the composition of it...or maybe I mean the perspective. Compositionally it probably could be more interesting. But I just like how the leaf is the focal point when you'd think it should be that pot back there.

I've also learned I take way too many pictures and that's a good thing. The requirement was 10, and I took at least 80. So here are some of my other favorites from the same shoot.

I've learned a lot, but there is still much to learn!