From the course: Photo Gear Weekly

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How many aperture blades?

How many aperture blades?

From the course: Photo Gear Weekly

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How many aperture blades?

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- I imagine when most photographers think about the lens aperture, they're really just thinking about the f-stop that they're using to capture a given image. And the decision about lens aperture usually relates to depth of field, at least in most typical scenarios. But you might also want to consider how many blades are in that lens aperture, especially when you're purchasing a new lens, or even choosing which lens to use for a given shot. Why does it matter? Well, conceptually, keep in mind, of course, that a lens aperture theoretically is a circle, but really it's created by a series of blades that close down, forming a more or less, circular shape. The fact that the circle is not a perfect circle is what leads to a starburst effect when we stop down the lens with a sharp point of light, for example. A night scene would be a typical scenario where you might see a starburst effect, and you can accomplish that by stopping down the lens to f/16 or f/22, for example. But the shape of…

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