Wednesday, 5 February 2020

What's the benefit of a tiny aperture?


In this answer to another question Rob Clement wrote:



Think background first. What story do you want to tell? Epic background, big mountains. Looking to deliver a sense of grandeur with your subject. Go big! f/22 or higher if you have it.



I understand that he's using depth of field to talk about keeping the background sharp. But even at a modest f/8, the hyperfocal distance for most common scenarios is only a few tens of feet... more than enough to get a mountain range in.


I also understand that wider apertures reduce sharpness... but a few stops down from wide open is usually enough.


And obviously, you can use a smaller aperture to reduce the light. But f/22 seems pretty tiny even for a bright day.



So what other reasons for using a tiny aperture exist?



Answer



Those kind of apertures often show up in macro work because the DoF is razor thin, so every fraction of a mm you can get matters. However, you also can be diffraction limited at such a aperture and actually end up with less sharpness. Cambridge in Colour has a good article on this very topic.


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