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And pinhole cameras tlr, with their infinite depth of field.
Which also demonstrate how things go into a soft defraction focus when apertures are two small.
Images tend to get softer after being stopped below f11. f8 is 'usually' the sweet spot.
You can’t tell it the range to work with, for example, float between 100 and 3200?
Not to my knowledge.
F8 and be there, baby.
(Sorry, couldn’t help myself)
eddiebabyImages tend to get softer after being stopped below f11. f8 is ‘usually’ the sweet spot.
Must admit I've tried not to get involved, but this, whilst technically correct, is one of the silly 'rules' which stops people from experimenting and learning.
Depending on sensor size, lens quality and lots of math involving the Circle of confusion you can work out 'perceptual sharpness' to within a nat's hair without even looking through your camera, but where's the fun in that.
The f8-11 is sharpest 'rule' is perpetuated by pixel peepers who spend their lives at zoomed to 100 and 200%. Yes, generally beyond F11 on full frame sensors, diffraction starts to play a part in image sharpness. In practice even with wall-sized prints -when viewed at a sensible viewing distance, ie not pixel peeping- you'd be hard pressed to see any difference at all.
In a nutshell the narrower the aperture the shallower the depth of field, ie the foreground and background will be out of focus. This looks amazing,
One of the things I've learned more recently is to stop the aperture down more for portraiture rather than shooting wide open. I'm lucky to have the chance to shoot with a Lecia and a fast lens and having spent some time on the Leica user's forum I've come to realise just how saccharine and awful are the photographs of so many Leica users; it's like they surgically remove your aesthetic gland when you buy a Leica and a fast lens.
The over use of wide open apertures, especially for portraits is cloying, sentimental and cliched. I don't shoot below f/2 these days and most of my portraiture is shot between f/2.8 and f/5.6 on a 50mm lens. For street photography I'll use a 35mm lens and nothing below f/8 - on a bright day I will use f/11 or even f/16.
There is a very good rule of thumb for exposure - the 'sunny 16' rule. Simply stated is says that the shutter speed in bright sunlight for any image shot at f/16 is the reciprocal of the ISO (and it applies equally to digital ISO gain as much as it did film speed).
So in bright sunlight, at ISO100, you shutter speed for f/16 is 1/100 (which is 1/125 strictly speaking); at ISO400 it's 1/400 (1/500).
Take off one or two stops for light cloud cover, three for heavy cloud cover. Once you realise that everything moves in line with everything else in regulated measures (stops), you can shoot manual exposure without even needing a light meter.
The f8-11 is sharpest ‘rule’ is perpetuated by pixel peepers who spend their lives at zoomed to 100 and 200%.
It's an old manual everything rule. It gave, and still gives, margin for error. This is still particularly true when you get a light focus miss. You won't notice it at f8.
Sunny 16 is based on a sunny day in the summer a lot closer to the equator than we are. So will generally underexpose by around 1 stop in UK bright summer conditions, more so the rest of the year, if you're stuck without a light meter then it's a really useful tool but you need to compensate based on your location.
TBH the best exposure is the one you find aesthetically pleasing no matter what a light meter or a histogram tell you.
It’s an old manual everything rule. It gave, and still gives, margin for error. This is still particularly true when you get a light focus miss. You won’t notice it at f8.
Correct you won't notice on film at small print sizes. However f8 can still be a remarkably shallow depth of field depending on focal length and focus distance.
I should have worded that as 'The f8-11 is sharpest ‘rule’ is [b]still needlessly[/b] perpetuated by pixel peepers who spend their lives at zoomed to 100 and 200%.' 😉
Sunny 16 is based on a sunny day in the summer a lot closer to the equator than we are. So will generally underexpose by around 1 stop in UK bright summer conditions, more so the rest of the year, if you’re stuck without a light meter then it’s a really useful tool but you need to compensate based on your location.
This is true; actually I thought I'd written 'add a stop for British summer' but I must have some how deleted that sentence before posting.
Correct you won’t notice on film at small print sizes. However f8 can still be a remarkably shallow depth of field depending on focal length and focus distance.
True, but not as shallow as having the lens wide open. And you have more light than F16...
It's nothing more than a sensible compromise, and still a useful point of reference for anyone starting out.
Although f5.6 and stay there is probably a better quote as the standard entry level camera is apsc.
Or... f4 for m4/3 or wide f2.8 for 1".