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…

  • miri_in_the_mirror@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Purely scientific? Depth of Field Calculator. There are many in browser available via phone. Will show what is area(by distance from sensor plane) is in focus at every distance for every aperture and for every focal length for every format.

    Aesthetically? Lens Tests. Depth of Field Calculator is great, but won’t tell you about focus rolloff, or bokeh size differences.

    Testing can be tedious, but depending on the subject/compositions you plan to use often and the focal lengths available you can focus on that. It’s even easier if you can shoot video with your camera - slap on a lens, light a subject with maybe some foreground/background, mark distances to subject from different camera points and roll for 10 seconds, keep rolling and change the aperture every time. Change iso or light intensity to compensate for image viewability.

    Lastly, something small to leave you with - lenses are (typically) designed and calibrated to have the best performance between t/2.8-4. Nothing wrong with with shooting at 1.4 or 22, but the closer you are to those stops the less vignetting, aberration and other unpredictable elements you will find.