F Stop ?

C

Cabrera

Well-known member
I have an outside shoot today and do not have my ND filters ...Thats pros and cons of a higher vs lower F Stop other then DOF ...I'm shooting with my 50mm 1.8
 
Wide open, many lenses can be soft... however, higher f-stops, very high, will have loss in resolution from other optical effects due to the small aperture opening (refraction?)

Besides that, I'm not sure what else you will experience. As far as I know color is about the same, but contrast might be a bit more drastic. I've heard that wide open apertures have a bit more shadow detail... not sure if that is perceived or factual.
 
Diffraction (not refraction) is what you get with very small apertures - the incoming light starts to act as if it's coming through a prism and you get odd colour effects and resolution loss. And wide open, you may get some softness, although that may not be critical for video (depends on the subject, of course). Much of the softness of wide-open lenses is only really noticeable in still photography.
 
Contrast will go up. The more you stop down, the more contrast lenses seem to exhibit.

ingeneral, your lens will perform its best 2-3 stops down from wide open till about 2 stops from minimum aperture. For most still lenses thats somewhere between F4 and F11.
 
I always have two ND filters in my bag- it's really critical when you're shooting outdoors. That is unless you don't care about having to go to max shutter speeds just to get some decent DOF.

-Noah
 
NickG said:
Diffraction (not refraction) is what you get with very small apertures - the incoming light starts to act as if it's coming through a prism and you get odd colour effects and resolution loss. And wide open, you may get some softness, although that may not be critical for video (depends on the subject, of course). Much of the softness of wide-open lenses is only really noticeable in still photography.
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hahahahah that's it! I knew it seemed wrong when I said it... hence the question mark. Nick got it! :P

Wide open can be an issue on some lenses. High quality lenses it isn't terribly noticeable, like Master Primes, Cooke S4's, etc. However, take a set of SuperSpeeds wide open and your 1st AC will go cross eyed trying to find focus on a monitor. They get wicked soft! Some lenses are better than others, but usually a T/2.8 and T/4 is the golden spot.

TimurCivan said:
Contrast will go up. The more you stop down, the more contrast lenses seem to exhibit.
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Ok cool. I'm glad I'm not the only one who notices that.
 
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I always have two ND filters in my bag- it's really critical when you're shooting outdoors.
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with a 50 1.8 i woudnt even THINK about shooting outdoors on a sunny day without at least one ND filter. if there is a camera store. even a best buy or something, in your area. go get SOMETHING.
 
wgzn said:
with a 50 1.8 i woudnt even THINK about shooting outdoors on a sunny day without at least one ND filter.
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Relying on high shutter speed, like NoahK said, isn't bad if you're only shooting stills. But totally unusable for video. Some ND filters ARE required for outdoor shooting.
 
NoahK said:
I always have two ND filters in my bag- it's really critical when you're shooting outdoors. That is unless you don't care about having to go to max shutter speeds just to get some decent DOF.

-Noah
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i was starting to have a heart attack reading this thread seeing that nobody posted this information until you did. be prepared to bump up that shutter speed if you plan on shooting anything below f8 on a sunny day.
 
What about filming Moto Cross. I was going to shoot some Moto cross what would F Stop have to do with moving images. pro and cons
 
Depends on the amount of motion in the scene. Moto Cross is bound to have a lot of motion and using very high shutter speeds can cause what looks like a kind of "strobing" effect. That said, you should be able to use 1/120th or possibly even (maybe) 1/250th if necessary. Shoot some tests out on the streets before the event and see what you get.
 
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