aperture settings for detailed foreground and background

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

There is no escaping that small apertures such as f11 or f16 need longer shutter speeds. The two are inter-related.

However, there are three additional options. The most effective is to use a tripod and eliminate the camera shake that way. No good for moving subjects though - even moving grass and trees on a windy day. However, perfect for still subjects.

You can also increase the ISO value on a digital camera, which will result in higher noise (grain) but will mean less shake. Better to have a sharp grainy picture than a blurred fine grain one.

Finally you can use Shake Reduction technology. This works very well with the Pentax DSLRs and enables much sharper pictures at speeds lower than was previously thought possible.

The final factor is the point of focus. If you want maximum depth of field (sharpness from front to back) then you focus on the hyperfocal distance. Without going into the technicalities of this, which could simply confuse the issue, what you do is follow a rule of thumb. Set a small aperture (say f11, f16) and focus on a point one third of the way in.

So, if you wanted everything in focus from say infinity to maybe around 10 feet away then you might focus on a point around 15-20 feet away.

Just approximate one third in and don't worry too much. It should be close enough.

Some older lenses have depth of field markings on them, but modern zooms don't.

Hope that helps!

Hi, not an easy question to answer because it depends on the focal length of the lens. The longer the focal length, the smaller the depth of field. Useful if you you want to isolate a subject from the background. It was much easier with the older manual lenses because they had a scale on them from which you could guess the DOF. Another way of doing it is to use the stopdown lever if the camera has one.

Solutions, either increase the ISO setting on a digital or use faster film and accept the noise/grain penalty.

Kim

Hi lordson. The smaller the apature the greater the depth of field. If you try setting the hyperfocal distance then halfway between that setting and the camera to infinity will be in focus. An approx. way of setting this distance is:- Say you have a 35mm lens and you set your apature to f11 then devide 35 by 11 = approx 3. this is 3mtrs. Set focus to 3mtrs. Therefore depth of field (focus) will be from 1.5mtrs. to infinity. The wider the angle of lens the easier it is to get greater depth of field. e.g. 24mm lens devided by f11 = approx 2mtrs. therefore depth of field is from 1mtr to infinity. etc. etc. If you don't have a camera with shake reduction then you must use a faster ISO 400 or 800 and or a tripod/monopod/beanbag to give stability. For low light and large depth of field a tripod is the best bet everytime.
CHEERS Vic.

To John and Kim. It seems you got your answers in while I was typing mine. I'll have to learn to type a bit faster. however we all gave lordson the same basic answer.
CHEERS Vic

I think all 3 of us were typing at the same time.

Kim

I think we were.

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To John and aj. I had a look at both of your sites. Both quite technical but both make sense and are very informative.
CHEERS Vic