New to photography

[Buckster]

I knew what he meant, I went and looked it up. Being new doesn't mean I am ignorant...

Sorry, I didn't intend to sound patronising or accuse you of ignorance :blushing:

I just thought when you said "New to Photography", you meant really new!

The only trouble with that is f/2 is a bigger number than f/8 is.

Lens aperture number is decidedly logical, within the context of having a solid basic understanding of math and numbers.

No. F/2 is a bigger aperture than F/8 is. I misunderstood quite how new to photography the OP was and thought I'd make the concept easier to understand for them. It now turns out that he already knew the concept of smaller numbers meaning bigger aperture.

I'm fairly sure I have a basic understanding of the numbers 1 to 8. And have a basic enough knowledge of maths to know that 8 is more than 2.

Thanks for the sarcasm lesson!

As one with a basic understanding, surely you understand that f stop is a fraction, thus the / in there. Think 1/2 vs 1/8 - which one is bigger? NOW do the math. Keith is correct.

 

[Buckster]

I'm not sure I like your tone.

:lmao:

Maybe you should adjust your white balance?

 

[Gaerek]

Open the aperture nice and wide (biggest number you can get out of your lens). Boost the ISO up as much as you can without thinking the results look too bad to use.

This will allow you to use the fastest shutter speed you can squeeze out of whatever lens you're using, which will help you freeze the action and not have blurry shots.

Might I just say that since the OP is new to photography and in case they are not familiar with the illogical aperture numbering system, this should read:

Open the aperture nice and wide (smallest number you can get out of your lens)...

The numbering system for aperture is far from illogical. It isn't just an arbitrary set of numbers thrown in to represent the size of the aperture. Actually, it's very logical, if you understand how the numbers were determined.

F numbers are a ratio of aperture diameter divided by focal length. F/2 for example means that the aperture diameter is half the focal length. If f is a variable, (which it is, in the notation we use) you can also think of it (f/2 as an example) as f x 1/2. Literally, the f number is a fraction. This is also why f/2 is indeed larger (both in number and aperture diameter) than f/8.

 

[Forkie]

I'm not sure I like your tone.

:lmao:

LOL, Touché!

Ok,ok, fair enough. Perhaps my attempt at helping was mis-conceived and possibly not helping at all. I know when I've been beaten.