CO777-200ER From United States of America, joined Apr 2001, 331 posts, RR: 1 Posted (11 years 6 months 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 1440 times:
Hello I am wondering how does Aperture affect your pictures that you take. On my camera I always have it set on F5.6. I am wondering if on certain days I should change it if it is cloudy or sunny.
AndyEastMids From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2001, 996 posts, RR: 2 Reply 1, posted (11 years 6 months 3 days 1 hour ago) and read 1388 times:
Simplistically, the only reason why you should change your apperture on cloudy or sunny days is because the apperture set effects the shutter speed the camera chooses. For any given level of light, smaller apperture equals slower shutter speed, wider apperture equals higher shutter speed. So, on dull days, you might find that F5.6 gives an unacceptably slow shutter speed and you might want to increase the apperture (set a lower number) whilst on bright days... Well on bright days you might want set a smaller apperture to get more depth of field (depth of field, what's that?).
So, aside from the relationship between appertue and shutter speed, the main effect of apperture is on depth of field. Depth of field is the area (distance) in front of and behind the focus point, which will also appear to be sharp. The smaller the apperture (a small aperture is a big number - i.e. F11 is smaller than F5.6), the greater the depth of field, and vice versa.
In aviation photography, when taking a side on picture of an airplane, depth of field has relatively little impact on the result as essentially the majority of the airplane is at the same distance from the camera. So assuming you can focus correctly, the majority of the airplane should be in focus anyway. However, if you were to shoot a relative close up from the nose of an airplane, depth of field becomes more important because with a small/narrow depth of field the nose might be in focus whilst the tail isn't. Bottom line is that if you want a picture to be sharp across a wide distance, you need to select a smaller apperture.
However, the is one further consideration regarding apperture, and that is that all lenses perform better and give sharper results at smaller appertures (remember small apperture means big number) than they do at large appertures. Particularly, most lenses won't give overly sharp results at their largest apperture. It thus makes sense to try to use an apperture part way up the scale if possible, and try to avoid the maximum. In this respect, F5.6 should not be a problem (unless F5.6 is the maximum apperture of your lens), but F8.0 might give better sharper results. However, given the relationship between apperture and shutter speed, you may sometimes be forced to use a larger apperture than is ideal, just to keep the shutter speed up to an acceptable level.
G-CIVP From United Kingdom, joined Mar 2001, 1209 posts, RR: 10 Reply 2, posted (11 years 6 months 3 days 1 hour ago) and read 1364 times:
Pretty clear to me. To use a practical example, using 100 film on a bright sunny day, taking landing shots at LHR, using a good camera and good zoom lens, what would be the best aperture and speed setting in general terms?
I'm not trying to trick anyone here, I just want to confirm my own settings are in the right direction!!
DSMav8r From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 579 posts, RR: 8 Reply 4, posted (11 years 6 months 3 days ago) and read 1349 times:
Generally speaking, the sharpest apertures are f8 and f11, but that is not always true.
As a rule of thumb, your lens' sharpest aperture is usually two stops down from the maximum aperture...So, if your lens' maximum is f5.6, your lens will be sharpest at f11, if f4, your sharpest would be f8, etc, etc...
If you have aperture priority mode, just set your camera to the sharpest aperture for your particular lens, then let the camera determine the shutter speed.
Aric Thalman
Omaha, USA
To most people, the sky is the limit. To those who love aviation, the sky is home
Staffan From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 5, posted (11 years 6 months 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 1318 times:
I was going to start a new thread, but I might as well ask it here. Can anyone explain how come the aperture changes the depth of field? Does anyone know a webpage that sketches it up?
Also, I've seen that certain cameras feature DOF preview, how does that work?
Rindt From Germany, joined May 2000, 930 posts, RR: 14 Reply 6, posted (11 years 6 months 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 1307 times:
Aric,
So you're saying F5.6 is the sweet-spot on an F2.8 piece of glass??? I only use F8, and sometimes F5.6 if I need a higher shutter speed to "freeze" the background (like I did today for JMC A330... what a beauty, but that's another story all together). For ramp shots, it's gotta be F8 or F11... nothing wider.
-Rob
What other people think of you is none of your business!
DSMav8r From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 579 posts, RR: 8 Reply 8, posted (11 years 6 months 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 1286 times:
Rob,
Technically yes, most constant 2.8 lenses are sharpest at f5.6, but the falloff will not be that significant until you reach f16, which is still barely evident unless you blow up your photos past 11x14.
It really can depend on the lens sometimes though...For example, my Tokina 28-70mm 2.8 is sharpest @ f5.6, whereas my Nikkor 80-200mm 2.8 is sharpest @ f8. But, there are just some situations where f5.6 is just way too wide, especially during bright sunny days...
Aric Thalman
Omaha, NE
To most people, the sky is the limit. To those who love aviation, the sky is home
CO777-200ER From United States of America, joined Apr 2001, 331 posts, RR: 1 Reply 9, posted (11 years 6 months 2 days 2 hours ago) and read 1275 times:
Thanks everyone for the replies. The lens I use is a Nikon 75-300mm. I always have my shutter speed at 1/2000 so saying that I better but my aperture at F8. The maximum for my camera is F4.2 or something like that. I mainly take arrival and departure shots.
CO777-200ER From United States of America, joined Apr 2001, 331 posts, RR: 1 Reply 11, posted (11 years 6 months 2 days 1 hour ago) and read 1273 times:
I was checking my camera and the minumum aperture it goes to is F32 and the maximum is F4.8, so I am wondering what aperture should I put it on.
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Thought so. 
Oh well...
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