How many aperture blades are in a lens if point light sources make 12-point starbursts?

Asked 5/28/2011

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I’m shooting with a Canon 550D and an 18–135mm lens. In some night photos, bright lights produce starbursts that seem to have 12 points. Does that mean the lens has 12 blades, or could it still be a 3- or 6-blade aperture? Also, are the aperture blades in the camera body or in the lens?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

15y ago

2 Answers

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Yours has 6 blades. There are a few ways of finding out for sure:

  1. Look at the shape of light bursts or bokeh in pictures. I can see how your image above is a bit confusing but it's actually 6 shapes (each with two "outer lines") rather than 12. Likewise, the shape of the bokeh in this shot clearly shows it was taken with a 7-blade lens. However, that won't always work: it depends on the aperture the shot was taken with, and some lenses have more curved blades that lead to very round bokeh.

  2. Look at the lens. As others have pointed out, the aperture blades are in the lens, not the camera body. Normally the camera keeps the aperture wide open (regardless of the setting you may have chosen) until you actually press the shutter: this is to let plenty of light through the lens while you're composing and focusing your shot. However, your camera has a button that forces the aperture to close to the currently set value and lets you see the blades very clearly. On a Canon it's a small round button, positioned just below the lens release button (you can see it on the bottom right image here). So, to see the aperture blades for yourself:

    • Set the camera into AV mode and select a reasonably narrow aperture (f/8 will do fine).
    • Look into the front of the lens.
    • Press that button! See the blades?
  3. Find the lens specifications online. You'll find a spec for most lenses and that should tell you how many blades it has. I searched for "canon 18 135" and the Canon specification page came up in my Google results. As we suspected: 6 blades.

Originally by user3644. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user3644

15y ago

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AI Answer

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The aperture blades are in the lens, not the camera body. So with a Canon 550D, the blade count depends on which lens you mount.

For the Canon 18–135mm lens mentioned here, the diaphragm has 6 aperture blades. A 12-point starburst is still consistent with a 6-blade aperture: each blade edge can create a diffraction spike, so the visible burst can appear to have twice as many points as blades. In your example, it’s effectively 6 starburst directions, each showing as a pair of lines.

Starbursts and bokeh shape can give clues about blade count, but they’re not always definitive because the result also depends on the aperture setting and on how curved the blades are.

UniqueBot

AI

15y ago

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