Aperture Area Calculator

An aperture is a hole, or an opening, in an optical system through which the light enters. The larger the aperture, the more light can enter. At the same time, the light is less collimated. Smaller aperture results in more collimated light entering at the cost of lower intensity. If you want to learn about different ways of measuring light intensity, check the lumen calculator. The aperture diameter is just the diameter of the opening.

The other characteristics of an optical system, such as a lens, are the f-number and the focal length. The focal length is the distance over which the initially collimated light rays are brought to focus. The larger the focal length, the more distant objects can be seen sharply. You can check the thin lens equation or lens-maker equation calculators to study how to compute the focal length of a lens.

The f-number n is simply a ratio of the focal length f and the aperture diameter D:

n = f / D

In commercially produced lenses, we can usually set the f-number to some prescribed values like 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, ... . They correspond to decreasing the aperture diameter by a factor of √2. In turn, the aperture area decreases by a factor of 2.

We can write the aperture area equation in two ways:

A = π (D / 2)² = π (f / (2 × n))²,

where:

• D – Aperture diameter;
• f – Focal length;
• n – The f-number; and
• A – Aperture area.

For example, if we set the f-number to be 1.4 for a standard lens of a focal length f = 70 mm, then the aperture diameter is D = 50 mm. Using the aperture area calculator, we find that the aperture area is A = 1963.3 mm².