Back to basics Part 1- What is the exposure triangle and aperture?

Exposure. Aperture. Shutter speed. ISO. F-stop. Depth of field. These are just some of the phrases and words you will constantly hear on this blog and in the world of food photography. So to kick off our blog, we wanted to start with the fundamentals of food photography and understanding what is exposure and the exposure triangle. Once you have a clear understanding of this, all the other terms will become crystal clear. 

Our focus today will be the exposure triangle and aperture. In order to understand the exposure triangle, lets break this down into the two words- exposure and triangle.

Exposure is simply the amount of light entering the camera and reaching the sensor. Too much light entering the camera and your image will be too bright- overexposed. Too little light and you will have a dark image- underexposed. So how do you get the perfect exposure? Well, the camera uses three tools to control the amount of light entering the camera and these are aperture, shutter speed and ISO. These three elements have to work in perfect harmony to get the perfect exposure. Change one and you will affect the other two elements. Hence, these three tools make up the exposure triangle.

Today we will outline aperture and how this affects the exposure and your food photography. Aperture is the opening in the lens which allows light to enter the sensor. It’s denoted by an F number on your camera e.g. F2.8, F5.6, F10, F16.

You can increase the opening (widen the aperture) to allow more light to reach your lens and therefore, a brighter image. This is denoted by a small number for the F stop. So when the F stop is 1.8, it is wide open and allows a large amount of light into the camera.

Alternatively, you can decrease your aperture size and reduce the light reaching the sensor to give you a darker image. Your F stop number will be higher such as F10 or F16.

In food photography, aperture also controls the ‘bokeh’ in your image- how blurred the background is in your food photographs. When you focus on the food or your hero subject, that object will be in focus. A certain area in front of and behind your focus point will also be sharp and in focus. This is the depth of field- the area of focus. Everything else is blurred out. A wide or large aperture gives a more blurred background. A small or narrow aperture will make the background sharper.

To conclude, here are the main points covered:

• Exposure is the amount of light hitting the sensor
• Exposure is controlled by three elements- aperture, shutter speed and ISO
• Aperture is an opening in the lens that controls the amount of light entering camera
• Aperture also controls the bokeh or background blurring
• Wide/ large aperture= small F stop number= more light= more blur in background
• Narrow/ small aperture= larger F stop number= less light= less blur in background