What apertures are you using mostly on MFD ?

fully open

3 (10.3%)

Medium

7 (24.1%)

f/11

16 (55.2%)

f/16

3 (10.3%)

f22

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 29

Voting closed: November 13, 2014, 12:19:22 pm

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I would be interested which aperture MFD shooters mostly use? Personally, I default to f/11.

Best regards
Erik

[Ken R]

Hi,

I would be interested which aperture MFD shooters mostly use? Personally, I default to f/11.

Best regards
Erik

When I use my IQ160 on the Hasselblad with the 80mm most of the time im wide open at f2.8.
When using the same back on the Arca im at f8 most of the time, sometimes f11.

In the studio (with either camera its f8 or f11)

[Hank Keeton]

Using a Leaf-Aptus-65....on the Hassy 555 ELD and V-glass....I don't stop-down any further than f16.

Same back.....on the Sinar P-2 and digital glass (generally) no more than f8, (usually start at f5.6).....with some non-digital glass I can go one-more stop to f11....

It's the angle-of-incidence and photo-site depth that kills my resolution and introduces CA....

Cheers,

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Thanks for info, much appreciated!

Best regards
Erik

When I use my IQ160 on the Hasselblad with the 80mm most of the time im wide open at f2.8.
When using the same back on the Arca im at f8 most of the time, sometimes f11.

In the studio (with either camera its f8 or f11)

[yaya]

No defaults, favourites or limits.

Whatever it takes to achieve the look that I'm after.

+1

[synn]

No defaults, favourites or limits.

Whatever it takes to achieve the look that I'm after.

+2

[ndevlin]

I'm going to say this once, and with love:  you people need to get over this aperture thing.
 
Shoot in 'image priority mode'.  Let the aperture follow.  All the time.

 

[synn]

I'm going to say this once, and with love:  you people need to get over this aperture thing.
 
Shoot in 'image priority mode'.  Let the aperture follow.  All the time.

 

Amen. This "aperture thing" is a direct result of too much test chart shooting and too little real world images.

[ndevlin]

I've posted this image in another thread, but here it is again to make the point.  Shot at f32 to achieve a slow enough shutter speed.  My most successful image in a couple of years (in terms of commercial appeal).  Looks amazing at 24x30.  I spot sharpened careful and extensively. It works.  Diffraction? I'm sure there is.  The contents of the image make that largely irrelevant.

[torger]

As a landscape photographer using Schneider Digitar lenses my favourite aperture would be f/11. However I see myself shooting at f/16 more and more often. I think aliasing is a worse artifact than diffraction, and I often have use of the extra DoF I get with f/16. Shutter speeds get a bit longish though.

Another reason I shoot more at f/16 now than before is that I employ larger shifts now, and then the sharpness becomes more even at f/16.

For plain infinity focused grand landscape scenes without complicated DoF challenges or large shifts I still shoot at f/11 though, but I do think it gets a little bit too sharp for my 33 megapixel back. That's the main reason why I want to upgrade to 50 megapixel at some point.

At close range (semi-macro) I often shoot at f/22 to get a bit thicker than razor thin DoF, and then the resolution gets real suffering from diffraction but it's still a better tradeoff.

I think people in general is a bit too afraid about diffraction. If you don't have any AA filter on your sensor diffraction is your friend

[synn]

To continue the trend of using images to prove the point, here's the image I posted last week again. Shot at f/22 because I needed good DoF and because I needed to maximize shutter speed. Shot with a very old lens too.
I am sure if I had shot a test chart with those settings, it would have been less than ideally sharp, but to my eyes, the sharp areas of this image are as sharp as they need to be.

[jerome_m]

The question is neutral. It reads "what aperture are you using mostly on MFD?", not: "what apertures should you use on MFD to minimise diffraction?" or anything like that. OK, we all know that Erik has a web site full of test charts, but it is not in the question. So let us assume that the question is neutral, please.

My answer is "middle" (around f/5.6-f/8, mostly). More often than not, I need that to get a such speed that there would be no movement blur. ISO 50 is pretty slow. I also find that bokeh is best around f/5.6 and that is important to me.

If I photographed exclusively landscapes or architectures, I would use smaller apertures.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I'm going to say this once, and with love:  you people need to get over this aperture thing.
 
Shoot in 'image priority mode'.  Let the aperture follow.  All the time.

 

Hi Nick,

Smiley noted, but I fail to see the logic in your statement above (marked in bold).

For a photographer, aperture is image, since it defines how the 3-D scene is translated into an image on a flat plane. So in a way, Erik's question is an indirect way of asking; what's the type of images you prefer, shallow DOF or deep DOF, or something in between, or all over the place because you do not have a specific narrow definition of how you approach your subject? I would agree if you said that composition comes first, technique only enables the capture (although it might influence the creative choices by limiting the palette of solutions to choose from).

For me, the difficulty in answering would be due to the variety of the subjects I shoot, from extreme close-up/macro (requiring lots of DOF which is lacking due to magnification, but not always), to smallish products (requiring tilt/shift), to reproductions (requiring even sharpness across the focus plane), to architecture and landscapes (which may require lots of DOF, but sometimes deliberately shallow DOF to isolate features from busy backgrounds).

Cheers,
Bart

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

The main reason I ask that I don't know. Personally I shoot f/11 mostly, the main reason is that stopping down to f/11 gives some leeway for focusing errors and also may help with corner sharpness.

Obviously, I stop down if needed. But I am a bit skeptic about relying to much on small apertures for DoF, I often try both stopping down and stacking. I also carry ND filters to get longer shutter times, often used on the DSLR but not yet on the Hasselblad.

For short DoF I may resort to my DSLRs that I can focus exactly using magnified live view.

Than, it is a bit interesting that some users use MF DSLRs normally fully open, but also that Jerome finds bokeh best at f/5.6. I presume that perception of bokeh may be a bit personal and also vary with lenses. Some lenses have hexagonal apertures, so they may look better fully open.

As Anders Torger points out, aliasing is virtually eliminated at f/16. But it seems not that aperture used routinely, so it is not an explanation that it is not seen as a problem. Anders indicates that he has issues with aliasing, like me. I guess that C1 and Phocus are good at reducing colour moiré, the most obvious aliasing artefact. Anders develops raw conversion software (LumaRiver and RawTherapee) and I prefer Lightroom, I guess that colour moiré is more obvious with these converters than with Capture One.

It is also interesting to hear that tech camera users often stop down less than on DSLR. So it is interesting info.

As a side note, I have used the Hasselblad for 16 months now, and I feel that my technique has improved a lot in this time. It is also a bit interesting that about 1/3 of my images under that period is on the P45+.

P45+: 3355
Alpha 77 (APS-C): 1658
Alpha 99 (Full frame): 4349

How many of those images are good images, I don't know. I use the Alpha 77 for street (small and flexible) and wildlife (small pixels), the P45+ for slow work and the Alpha 99 as a versatile work horse.

Another observation is that the P45+ sets a benchmark for image quality, makes me work harder with the other cameras, too.

Best regards
Erik

Hi Nick,

Smiley noted, but I fail to see the logic in your statement above (marked in bold).

For a photographer, aperture is image, since it defines how the 3-D scene is translated into an image on a flat plane. So in a way, Erik's question is an indirect way of asking; what's the type of images you prefer, shallow DOF or deep DOF, or something in between, or all over the place because you do not have a specific narrow definition of how you approach your subject? I would agree if you said that composition comes first, technique only enables the capture (although is might influence the creative choices by limiting the palette of solutions to choose from).

For me, the difficulty in answering would be due to the variety of the subjects I shoot, from extreme close-up/macro (requiring lots of DOF which is lacking due to magnification, but not always), to smallish products (requiring tilt/shift), to reproductions (requiring even sharpness across the focus plane), to architecture and landscapes (which may require lots of DOF, but sometimes deliberately shallow DOF to isolate features from busy backgrounds).

Cheers,
Bart

[jerome_m]

Than, it is a bit interesting that some users use MF DSLRs normally fully open, but also that Jerome finds bokeh best at f/5.6.

Maybe I should explain a bit more.

By "bokeh", I mean that I look for a particular result in the image. I want the subject to be sharp and I want the parts which are not the subject to be obviously out of focus yet still recognisable. The "obviously out of focus yet still recognisable" part is the difficult part for the lenses.

"Obviously out of focus" depends on the final print size. So here, your experience may be different to mine if you print smaller or larger. I aim to print fairly large, at least A2, preferably A1. I am considering printing even larger.

"Yet still recognisable" depends on the optical design. Some optical aberration will result out in out of focus parts exhibiting fake colours, an apparent doubling of the image or other, more global, effects. When I use a MF camera, I want to minimise these effects (but sometimes I use different cameras to maximise the effect...). If found that, even on MF lenses, some of these effects are visible at full aperture, which is about f/3.5-f/4 so about one stop from f/5.6.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Thanks for explanation.

A2 is my standard print size. Anything larger would go to a lab. My lab print sizes are normally 70x100 or 50x100 cm, but I have just a few of them.

The double contours are caused by over corrected spherical aberration, normally. With overcorrected spherical aberration they occur behind the subject.

The fake colours, normally magenta/green are caused by axial chromatic aberration. I see it on my Hasselblad/Zeiss lenses. It is still around on many modern designs, Zeiss has some pride that they have eliminated it on the Otus.

This is Planar 80/2.8 at f/5.6, I think, no EXIF data on the V-series :-(.



Full image is here

Best regards
Erik

"Obviously out of focus" depends on the final print size. So here, your experience may be different to mine if you print smaller or larger. I aim to print fairly large, at least A2, preferably A1. I am considering printing even larger.

"Yet still recognisable" depends on the optical design. Some optical aberration will result out in out of focus parts exhibiting fake colours, an apparent doubling of the image or other, more global, effects. When I use a MF camera, I want to minimise these effects (but sometimes I use different cameras to maximise the effect...). If found that, even on MF lenses, some of these effects are visible at full aperture, which is about f/3.5-f/4 so about one stop from f/5.6.