F stop is quite literally my favorite adjustment on a camera. I feel like it is the one setting that gives each photographer the creativity and style to there work. So for a basic explanation, F stop is the number for how much light is let into your camera which is based on your aperture. The way it works is each camera is set up similarly to an eye and has a pupil and an iris, or in more basic terms a hole that lets light in and will get larger or smaller depending on the diaphragm. The pupil/hole in the camera refers to the aperture and the diaphragm is what gets larger or smaller adjusting the amount of light that is let in.

The size of the aperture is measured in F numbers, more commonly known as F stop. Now here is where it gets a little confusing, the bigger the aperture gets the lower the F stop numbers go and vice versa, the smaller the aperture, the larger the F stop will be. For example if you have a F stop of 1.4 your aperture will be quite large and you will be letting a lot of light in. If you have a F stop of 22 your aperture will be quite small restricting the amount of light.

Now for moving on to the other part of the aperture. Aperture also changes the range of focus. The higher your F stop, the higher your range of focus. So if you are wanting the blurry background (boca) you will need to put your F stop at a lower number. This is the part that I feel adds the creativity to each photo. This will allow you to focus on one key element of the photo. One thing to keep in consideration is if you have a lens that allows you to go down to a F 1.2 you will start running into the problem of having to shallow depth of field. So if you are taking a photo of someones face, you may be focused on the front one half of the face and if they are also standing at an angle the other half will be blurry. I like to keep my F stop at a 2.2 if at all possible when doing portrait photography. However F stop gives you a chance to hide things in the background that may be not that appealing to look at. If used correctly this can take your photos to a whole new level.

Notice the difference in each of these photos. The first one has an F stop of 11, the next is 4.0 and the last is an 1.8. Let me know what your favorite is in the comments below!