Lesson 11 - Aperture

Congratulations!  You've made it to the third week of Homeschool Digital Photography.  This week, we are going to be starting to get down to the nitty gritty of taking photos using the manual mode.  You first real photography assignment begins today!  Have fun and do your best!

1.  Read pages 26 - 27 in "Digital Photography Complete Course" by DK and complete the activity provided by guessing which photo goes with each photo type.  This is not a test.  You are just guessing.   Grade your own paper with the answers are upside down on the top of page 27.

2.  Read pages 28 - 29  in "Digital Photography Complete Course" by DK

We are going to be looking at each camera setting in more detail over the course of the next week.  It's important to take our time throughout this section, as the settings are of the most important aspects

of digital photography.  Without a good understanding of the settings and how to use them, you will

lack skill and knowledge that is very needed.  

Not only do you need to know what each setting is, you also need to know what settings are optimal for different photographs, as well as having the skill to adjust the settings in manual mode on your specific camera.

The first setting we are going to study is aperture, which is measured in f-numbers, or what is usually

called "f-stops".  So, when you hear the term aperture, you should also think of the word f-stop. 

It's important to remember that f-stops are actually fractions.  So when the number on the bottom increases, the f-stop is actually getting smaller.  For example, f/1.4 is LARGER than f/2.   It helps to think of fractions to remember this.  Just think of pizza -- 1/2 of the pizza is much more than 1/4.  The larger the denominator, the smaller the piece of pizza you get!  

3.  Read this webpage on PhotographyLife.com here.   (take notes)

4.  Watch this video on aperture!  He does a great job explaining things:

5.  Watch this video on aperture here and complete the assignment that he gives in the video (at this point, we are assuming you can turn your camera one, set the mode dial to AV and then chang the fstop by using some tech savvy common sense :) )

Lesson Information for Teachers:

Video Lesson Duration:  17:21 & 6:47 (24:08  total duration)

Reading Webpage: Approx. 10 minutes

Reading in Text:  10 minutes

Skills Test:  30 minutes or more

Total Approximate Time for Lesson: Approx. 60 min. +/-