# Photography word problem



## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

Let's see...who should I pick on...got it...

Koru has decided that she's going to visit the states. She was quite fond of some of my lake shots and decides to head to Sprague Lake on a chilly September morning.

At first light there is no wind - not a leaf is moving - not a ripple on the surface. In the foreground 25' away a bull elk appears and all she can think of that it's the opportunity of a lifetime as the warm light begins to illuminate the peaks. The elk, the trees the water are all perfectly still.

She's shooting at 28mm with a 1.5 form factor on a tripod with a release. It's a perfect scene and she wants the best overall sharpness she can get. She drops the ISO to 100 and she's in aperture priority. Her choices are f/2.8, 5.6, 8, 11 22, 28 and 32 and there's enough light to use any of them.

The pressure is on you now - what should she use and why? Hurry - you're starting to lose the light. :wink:


----------



## Guest (Aug 10, 2007)

At that distance a 30 ought 6 with opens sights would do as well as anything else! :an2:


----------



## richg99 (Aug 21, 2004)

Highest possible f stop for maximum sharpness over all. IMHO Rich


----------



## OLD BULL (Sep 21, 2005)

Set the f stop to 11 to get a nice overall sharp pic and still have a decent shutter speed in case the elk happens to move.


----------



## Terry G. (Jul 17, 2006)

set it on auto and pray that your soney h5 you have is smart enough to correct every thing for you!


----------



## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

Usually a lens has a sweet spot for sharpness at about 2/3rds of it's smallest aperature. My first choice would be F22 since most lenses tend to lose a little sharpness when stopped down completely.


----------



## fishcat01 (Mar 24, 2005)

f/8 to f/11 is usually the "sweet spot" of any lens. Since she has the tripod and cable release, camera motion is not going to be a problem. Twenty-five feet away, huh? Think I would be more worried about lens distortion with that wide angle lens, even if it is a 42mm equivalent. With f/8 the area of apparent sharpness will be from about 9 feet to infinity. No need to use anything smaller.


----------



## RustyBrown (May 29, 2004)

*Winner*



fishcat01 said:


> f/8 to f/11 is usually the "sweet spot" of any lens. Since she has the tripod and cable release, camera motion is not going to be a problem. Twenty-five feet away, huh? Think I would be more worried about lens distortion with that wide angle lens, even if it is a 42mm equivalent. With f/8 the area of apparent sharpness will be from about 9 feet to infinity. No need to use anything smaller.


We have a winner. As you stop a lens down the ratio of diffacted to direct light increases and actually decreases the overall sharpness of the image. While this issue was not as significant with 35mm film it becomes more and mores significant the smaller the sensor size becomes. With a full frame sensor like the Canon 5D this effect would be lessened compared to a video camera with a small chip.

I have always stopped the lens way down to get maximum dof. I am very curious to see if this makes a significant difference in the end result. The old saying "f/8 and being there" has never been truer. Big kudos to fishcat on this one.


----------



## Koru (Sep 25, 2006)

sufferinsuckertash, i can't believe y'all think i'm daft enough to go taking photos of a bull elk during September.

rosesm


----------

