where is the "sweet spot" for 60d ??
- Thread starter Cabrera
- Start date
G
Guest
Guest
It is often two stops down from wide open, and you're close enough to sharpest a lens will get. Going above F11 and it starts to reverse, but probably will never get as bad as wide open. General rule.
Hopefully someone with experience with that lens camera combo will chime it, or... you could setup your own tests by shooting small printed text at different apertures.
Hopefully someone with experience with that lens camera combo will chime it, or... you could setup your own tests by shooting small printed text at different apertures.
Samuel H
Major Contributor
it depends on the lens, not the camera; you can check my tests here: http://www.similaar.com/foto/lenstests/lenstestsa.html - or play with this: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/...meraComp=474&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=2&APIComp=0
robotsound
Well-known member
If your lens is listed, the tools on the-digital-picture.com will show you all sorts of detail about how different lenses handle at different apertures.
Generally speaking, most lenses are at their best around f/8 and possibly wider. From f/2 and up, you start seeing chromatic aberration, softness, and other artifacts in many lenses from many manufacturers. From f/11 on down, lenses will start to become softer again due to diffraction. f/4 through f/8 should be as solid as it gets on just about any lens, with f/2.8 often doing very well too.
Different lenses perform differently of course, but the bit about the aperture extremes is based on physics, and is a fairly universal truth across all lenses.
Also, make sure to keep the actual sharpness control on your camera all the way down. It's only pushing up the contrast between adjacent pixels digitally, and is therefore only adding apparent sharpness while actually degrading the image. Typical Canon DSLR best practices are to set contrast to -4, saturation to -2, sharpness to 0, and use a picture style such as Faithful (but Neutral is also popular) to retain maximum latitude and color accuracy. Neutral has ever so slightly more latitude, while Faithful has better color accuracy (and in my experience makes skin tones look better).
Generally speaking, most lenses are at their best around f/8 and possibly wider. From f/2 and up, you start seeing chromatic aberration, softness, and other artifacts in many lenses from many manufacturers. From f/11 on down, lenses will start to become softer again due to diffraction. f/4 through f/8 should be as solid as it gets on just about any lens, with f/2.8 often doing very well too.
Different lenses perform differently of course, but the bit about the aperture extremes is based on physics, and is a fairly universal truth across all lenses.
Also, make sure to keep the actual sharpness control on your camera all the way down. It's only pushing up the contrast between adjacent pixels digitally, and is therefore only adding apparent sharpness while actually degrading the image. Typical Canon DSLR best practices are to set contrast to -4, saturation to -2, sharpness to 0, and use a picture style such as Faithful (but Neutral is also popular) to retain maximum latitude and color accuracy. Neutral has ever so slightly more latitude, while Faithful has better color accuracy (and in my experience makes skin tones look better).
robotsound
Well-known member
On a Canon DSLR, use the multiples of 160. For the lowest noise, use exactly these, and only these, ISO values: 160, 320, 640, 1250.
Feel free to use all of the others, but they will be more noisy. ISO 640 actually has about the same amount of noise as ISO 100, and ISO 320 is less noisy than ISO 100. Strange but true.
Feel free to use all of the others, but they will be more noisy. ISO 640 actually has about the same amount of noise as ISO 100, and ISO 320 is less noisy than ISO 100. Strange but true.
This site has lab tests of most glass. What they don't you is well they translate to real world shooting. http://photozone.de/Reviews/overview
Not strange at all, since higher ISO reduces noise. ISO 320 is actually ISO 400 darkened.
http://www.guillermoluijk.com/article/iso/index.htm
robotsound
Well-known member
Yeah, it all makes sense when you read up on the technological underpinnings. But if someone is just picking up the camera and using their intuition or experience with most other cameras as a starting point, ISO 640 being cleaner than ISO 200 is a surprising outcome 