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Choosing the right aperture doesn’t start with an f-number.
And it doesn’t start with your lens, either.
There’s one decision that comes first… and once you make it, choosing your aperture gets a whole lot easier.
Understand when and why to use the tools you already know.
Learn the basics without getting overwhelmed by settings and rules.
Make better decisions about light, composition, settings, and timing.
Build the confidence to trust your choices and create with intention.
Practice what you learn through: projects, live workshops, honest feedback, and a supportive community.
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And to make that decision easier, I want you to stop thinking like a camera operator.
Think like a movie director.
I know, you’re a photographer.
But a director, they don’t walk onto a movie set and start pressing buttons or moving cameras with no idea what the scene is supposed to become.
The director decides what the viewer should see, where the actors should move, what should get attention, and what the scene should feel like.
Then the tools help create that vision.
Photography works the same way.
Anyone can point a camera at something and take a photo, right?
But if you want the image to match what you saw in your mind, you need to direct it.
So, check this out.
I was shooting at Hocking Hills in Ohio with a 50mm lens.
Most of the day I was creating landscape images.
And my intent was to keep a lot of the scene in focus.
So I was using an aperture that supported that.
Image after image… no problem.
Then I came across this huge boulder.
So, I moved in and filled the frame with it because I wanted that boulder to become the star of my image.
But there was a problem.
The colors and textures in the background were close to the colors and textures of the boulder.
So instead of the boulder standing out… It started blending into the background.
And the image was ruined.
My creative intent had changed…
But my aperture hadn’t.
I was still using the setting that worked for the landscape images I had been creating before that.
And I’ve been doing this for 37 years.
So yes… you’re going to make mistakes too.
I even tried to fix that image later in Photoshop by creating more separation between the boulder and the background.
And it looked fake.
So, the better solution would’ve been to choose the right aperture before I pressed the shutter.
The mistake wasn’t that I didn’t understand aperture. I did.
The mistake was that I didn’t match the aperture to the image I wanted to create.
So how do you avoid making the same mistake I did?
Here’s the process I want you to start using.
Vision. Decision. Aperture.
Before you touch the aperture dial, ask yourself: what do I want this image to become?
Not what aperture should I use.
What do I want to create?
Then comes the decision.
How much of this image needs to be sharp for that vision to work?
Maybe you want your subject sharp and the background soft.
Maybe you want detail from the foreground deep into the scene.
That decision comes first.
Then you choose the aperture that supports it.
If you want less of the scene in focus, you move toward a larger aperture, which is a smaller f-number.
If you want more of the scene in focus, you move toward a smaller aperture, which is a larger f-number.
And this works regardless of the lens you’re using, because the decision doesn’t start with a number, it starts with your intent.
Whatever range your lens gives you, whether it opens to f/1.4 or only goes to f/5.6, you’re still asking the same question:
how much do I want sharp?
So, your lens changes what’s possible.
It doesn’t change the decision you’re making.
Then, once you make that first image, check it to see if it matches what you had in mind.
If not, adjust your aperture or your position and try again.
So, choosing the aperture gets easier once you know what you want the image to become.
But that raises a bigger question… how do you learn to see what the image needs in the first place?
For a long time, I thought some photographers were born with a creative eye.
Watch this video next, and I’ll show you why I don’t believe that anymore.
