Options
Apertures for Landscapes
I'm heading to Yosemite in a few weeks from Iowa. I don't shoot a lot of landscapes so I've been looking at a lot of sites and Smugmuggers pics. I'm having trouble figuring out what apertures to be shooting at. I know about the DOFmaster site, but I guess what confuses me is that I was just looked at two really nice landscapes where nothing was in the foreground. One was at 50MM f15 and another at 24MM f8. In these cases, f8 vs f16 doesn't really affect the DOF since the subject was more than 100ft away. There was no moving water, so the photog wasn't looking for a slower shutter.
How do you choose the perfect aperture? Or how did Ansel do it?:D
How do you choose the perfect aperture? Or how did Ansel do it?:D
0
Comments
Why? No real reason other then i want the longest exposure possible on my standard lense and i like being able to see everything.
Sometimes if i want a little blurry, i'll shoot lower.
Does your camera allow you to see how your photo will look, i forget what its called, but my nikon d200 has a button, i press it and it shows me how the photo looks in the viewfinder after my aperature is set. I do that till i get how i want something to look.
Hope that helps you.
www.adamdaley.com
www.fdphotos.net
It depends on your shooting conditions and the strengths of your equipment. For many landscape shots you want large depth of field. That generally means a smaller aperture f/8 of f/16 if your subject and camera stability can handle the resulting shutter speed.
However, if you are shooting wide angle like 18mm, you can still get really large depth of field, even at something like f/5.6 if you do proper hyperfocal focusing. For example, at 18mm, f/5.6 you can have everything from 5 feet to infinity in pretty good focus if you focus at about 10 feet.
Non-full-frame digital cameras (everything in Nikon's lineup except the D3) can start to lose sharpness due to diffraction somewhere between f/8 and f/16 so I generally don't go above f/16 except for macro shooting.
Homepage • Popular
JFriend's javascript customizations • Secrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
Always include a link to your site when posting a question
This is my favourite: http://www.dofmaster.com/charts.html
You must download and install on your computer; then select the appropriate values for your camera and lens.
Where it says Chart Title - the words Hyperfocal Distant Chart can be changed to read 17/55 f/2.8 zoom for example.
I print out small 4" x 6" cards that fit into my bag and/or pocket.
Something else to keep in mind is where your lens is strongest at; if you can get adequate DOF at f/8, and the lens is best at f/8, and is falling off at f/11, there's no point is using anything higher than f/8 (for example).
I use the MTF values for my lenses from here:
http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/overview
Pick your lens and memorize where it's best and where it falls off due to diffraction. Let's take this lens for example:
http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/46-nikon--nikkor-aps-c/229-nikkor-af-s-12-24mm-f4g-if-ed-dx-lab-test-report--review?start=1
The IQ (according to the MTF values) varies with focal length and f/stop, but it's readily noted that at f/11 it isn't at it's best (although it's still in the good range at f/11).
If you are a nit-picker, then you'd attempt to use it at f/8 or larger, but if the DOF wasn't quite enough, then use f/11.
Based on this, I don't stop down a couple of stops "just for good measure" because it's self-defeating, but one stop isn't a bad idea because the charts may not be the be-all and end-all. DOF of course is a subjective concept in the first place. It really comes down to how important the objects at infinity are.
There is a superb US landscape photog (Tim Fitzharris) that states that the immediate foreground (within a few feet) should be sharp because when we look with our eyes, this distance is always sharp, and we expect this in a photo.
In his book Audubon Society Guide to Landscape Photography, Tim Fitzharris states; The image will be most arresting if it displays sharply from front to back. This can be accomplished by shooting at the smallest aperture to maximize depth of field, and by focusing about one third of the way into the picture space to center the in-focus zone over the framed area. Use your cameras' depth-of-field preview feature to check results in the viewfinder".
"To attain the best combination of image resolution and depth of field, you need to determine the sharpest aperture for the lens. Use this setting whenever it provides adequate DOF for your purposes. Sometimes the highest resolving power is only marginally better than an aperture two or three stops smaller. In such cases, opt for the lower resolution/greater depth of field aperture if it furthers you compositional goals.