Aperture

For example - landscape to me is a high f-stop, and when wanting background/foregrounds blurry, then a low f-stop.

When I see a professional photos, they always seam to have just the right amount of blur.

I can imagine just practice practice practice helps!
 
I think what the OP means is that some shooters purposely use a limited DoF for their landscape shots. Creating an image that has a sharp foreground and slowly tails off, with the far background out of focus, but still with enough focus to make out what the objects are.

It seems to give the image more 'pop' and offers the appearance of depth more-so than just shooting at infinity or using hyperfocal methods.

I did see a nice example of this taken on a A7R with 55/1.8 it's much more difficult to do with a wide angle lens due to the larger DoF
 
Just experience really, you stop seeing it as aperture and more a dof setting.

Using my 50 for me is the hardest, too many options but fantastic when you nail it.
 
I tend to try to imagine the picture I want to get first and then use the settings that will achieve that. If you're trying to highlight something or draw attention away from something in the shot then you can use the aperture to your advantage. Then there's other times when you want to show everything in as much detail as possible :)
 
neodude said:
For landscapes you're better not stopping down too far, most lenses are sharper at around f/8 - f/16. I generally use f/11 for landscapes and adjust from there if needed. To keep things sharp throughout I generally focus using the hyperfocal distance. See here... http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/technique/camera_skills/mastering-hyperfocal-distance-56978
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll check that out.

englishpremier said:
I think what the OP means is that some shooters purposely use a limited DoF for their landscape shots. Creating an image that has a sharp foreground and slowly tails off, with the far background out of focus, but still with enough focus to make out what the objects are.

It seems to give the image more 'pop' and offers the appearance of depth more-so than just shooting at infinity or using hyperfocal methods.

I did see a nice example of this taken on a A7R with 55/1.8 it's much more difficult to do with a wide angle lens due to the larger DoF
Click to expand...

I think what you're talking about is a bit too technical for my skills at the moment! I'm simply trying to stop producing shots where the out of focus portion of the photo is too much out of focus!

hux said:
Just experience really, you stop seeing it as aperture and more a dof setting.

Using my 50 for me is the hardest, too many options but fantastic when you nail it.
Click to expand...

Phal said:
I tend to try to imagine the picture I want to get first and then use the settings that will achieve that. If you're trying to highlight something or draw attention away from something in the shot then you can use the aperture to your advantage. Then there's other times when you want to show everything in as much detail as possible :)
Click to expand...

This is something that I try to do and I take shot after shot when I have time, but I recently got back from a family wedding where I wasn't quite fast enough to take the same shot with different settings.

Darren555 said:
Does your camera have a depth of field preview button?
Click to expand...

It doesn't, no. Not that I know of anyway, its a D3100. This sounds like something that would be handy as it is difficult to see the resulting photo on my screen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom