Exposure
The brightness of a photo is known as exposure. The objective is to generally capture the perfect photography that is neither too bright nor too dark, with the right amount of details.
To allow more light to enter and brighten your photographs, you need to widen the aperture. On the other hand, a narrow aperture allows less light to enter, thus darkening your pictures.
While aperture is not the only way to vary the brightness levels of your photographs, it goes unsaid that it plays a significant role. The three camera essentials that make up the exposure triangle work together to give you a poorly or well-exposed image.
If the other two camera settings, ISO and shutter speed, remain unchanged, the ideal aperture setting would be f/5.6. However, the setting for optimal aperture would typically change if you take a photograph in a darker environment, where there is insufficient light.
For instance, while taking a picture at night, you might want to set a large aperture size such as f/2.8, similar to how the pupils of our eyes dilate to capture even the tiniest amount of light.
Depth of Field
The depth of field is a term that explains how much of an image is in focus. Images with a larger depth of field indicate that, for the most part, the photographs are in focus. Alternatively, images with small DOFs will only have a sliver in focus.
Regarding DOF, you must know that a larger aperture value such as f/2.8 results in minimal focus and a significant extent of blur in the background (suitable for shallow focus portraits).
Contrariwise, aperture values such as f/8 or even f/16 will provide substantial depth of field, making it suitable for architectural and landscape photos.
Here is a table to explain the different aperture sizes with regard to depth of field and exposure.
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