aperture settings for detailed foreground and background

lordson · Nov 9, 2007

hi guys,

i was wondering what aperture setting would be adequate for a highly detailed background as well and a clear focused foreground

would f11 do?

i see alot of potraits with blurred backgrounds, but when on holiday you want the whole scene too

at f11 i find the shutter speed is set a little low and the picture suffers from camera shake

on a cloudy and semi-sunny day, what shutter speed would that equate to?

cheers fellas

Alpha · Nov 9, 2007

At least f.11. Stop down as much as possible. I shoot some things at f.32 when I need tons of DOF.

JIP · Nov 10, 2007

Well really that is pretty much the trick to photography in general isn't it?. For every picture you take you try to balance the right shutter speed/fstop/ISO combination to shoot your subject and accomplish your ultimate goal. Honestly noone can really tell you exactly what settings to use for your particular situation one way to speed up that shuter speed might be to up your ISO of course making increasing noise a problem.

Alex_B · Nov 10, 2007

There is no standard answer to this, since it really depends on the scene and the perspective you want to picture it from.

f/16 or f/22 will do it in many landscape shots from 50mm to wide angle.

In some, f/8 will even do it. It really depends.

It also depends on the medium (aps-c, 35mm, medium format, ... )

just play and see

JerryPH · Nov 10, 2007

Actually, depending on the camera and location, anything between F/9 to whatever the limit of the lens is would all do about what you like. If you really want to try something, lookup and learn about "hyperfocal" and how it applies to your camera/lens.

chris_arnet · Nov 10, 2007

if its to shaky, get a tripod. Or a monopod if your going to be moving alot. I would say f/8 to f/9 would be fine if its holiday pics around the house, as long as you have a little distance between you and your subject. F/11 would be good. f/16 should be the very most you would need to stop down to.

Buszaj · Nov 10, 2007

So would you use those kind of aperture values for landscapes?

hamster · Nov 10, 2007

I use f/8 or 9 for most landscapes to prevent lens diffraction. I find it to be pretty sharp on my lenses, you may want to experiment with yours.

lordson · Nov 10, 2007

hrm... thanks guys, i'm going to get a tripod soon.

a Kodak Gear one, its only $20. and i'm going to get a Gorilla Tripod thing to keep in my pocket

i'll just get it ass high as i can for landscapes, it tried f22 once and i didn't know what the shutter was going to do, it stayed open for about 10 seconds making this weird humming sound, i thought my camera just broke itself until the shutter came back down and i got a shaky ass image

what would be a good f-stop for somehitng that is say 100m behind the subject? f8?

Garbz · Nov 10, 2007

Be careful with cheap tripods and big cameras. A $20 tripod may be okay for a D40 with a small kit lens, but I wouldn't trust it for anything larger. I've had a tripod collapse under a camera before and it's not pretty.