Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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communick@viewfinder.pro

How to choose the best aperture? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by OakTownPudge@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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When shooting with a given lens, how do you know which aperture is optimal for your creative vision?

Let’s say you want shallow dof, is there a place where you can learn that the sweet spot for dof and sharpness for a given lens model is when it’s stopped down by 1/2 stop?

Conversely, where would you go to learn that a given lens model goes soft after f/11?

Sure, you could create a test rig, take tons of pictures with each at every aperture and inspect them with a magnifying glass, but that seems awfully inefficient.

Thanks and I look forward to everyone’s guidance and insights…

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[–] Tommonen@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Just do it enough and you will gain an intuitive understanding on which aperture to choose. It depends on focal length and focusing distance. You can also use the DOF preview to see what sort of results you would get. When you find something to shoot, shoot it at different apertures that should be about right and analyse the results, see what works in what sort of situations (focal length + focusing distance + what you want out of the image).

It helps if you learn to master few prime lenses first before moving onto zoom lenses.