what is best f-stop for portraits and why (Page 5): Yeah, but there's always a better answer than simply "it depends," or "between f1 and f64," which as I said is not worth posting. It...

aellman Loc: Boston MA

burkphoto wrote:

Oh, come on! In photography, "it [quite often] depends." Everything is relative to circumstances, wants, taste, and needs. The only absolutes are the laws of physics.

Yeah, but there's always a better answer than simply "it depends," or "between f1 and f64," which as I said is not worth posting. It provides no information. What some posters do in a case like this is to say something helpful, like, "It depends on your situation. If you are shooting XXX, you would start here. If you are indoors, you could do this. If you..." a few tips to get the poor guy started. You get the idea. My problem is only with useless posts, many of which are a fruitless attempt at humor. >Alan

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

folkus wrote:

I take a lot of photos of people and am wondering if for individual people - from a depth of field point of view there is an ideal f stop to use as a starting point. Thanks so much for your helpful replies.

I'm going to jump right over five pages of better answers than mine. I'm not being facetious when I say that the best f-stop is the one that gives you exactly the results you want. Do you want the background to disappear in a fog of softness or are the items in the background part of the story of the subject, in which case you want them to be part of the image. Deciding what f-stop to use is the easy part - deciding exactly what result you want is often harder.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

mcveed wrote:

I'm going to jump right over five pages of better answers than mine. I'm not being facetious when I say that the best f-stop is the one that gives you exactly the results you want. Do you want the background to disappear in a fog of softness or are the items in the background part of the story of the subject, in which case you want them to be part of the image. Deciding what f-stop to use is the easy part - deciding exactly what result you want is often harder.

Agreed, and your answer is not without substance, like many.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

aellman wrote:

Yeah, but there's always a better answer than simp... (show quote)

And you have no sense of humor at all. Lighten up. Your rants about a humorous post are at least as, and probably, less effective than the humorous post itself.

Don, the 2nd son Loc: Crowded Florida

Sooo much excellent advice!!! My daughter & I will be "doing" a friends wedding in the fall and so my current focus (haven't done one in 30 years) is to review weddings. Just as important will be -practice- so end of summer we will be -practicing on family & friends- to make ourselves comfortable and confident with our chosen approach.

RobbieAB Loc: UK

fetzler wrote:

I would say some where between f 1 and f 64. Iust depends

Not f 0.95?

anotherview Loc: California

If a photographer first identifies his intention for the subject of a given photograph, then other factors follow. This approach brings together everything for a good photograph. We have no dependency here, only a rough formula to guide our photographic work.

mcveed wrote:

I'm going to jump right over five pages of better answers than mine. I'm not being facetious when I say that the best f-stop is the one that gives you exactly the results you want. Do you want the background to disappear in a fog of softness or are the items in the background part of the story of the subject, in which case you want them to be part of the image. Deciding what f-stop to use is the easy part - deciding exactly what result you want is often harder.

Doug52332

Seeing this forum actually inspired me to run some test shots, which I needed to do, anyway. For lack of a live subject (pets move at the wrong times and my wife was sleeping), I photographed the living room clock. I wanted to get a better handle on what my lights were capable of.

In manual mode, I set my aperture to f/5.6 and shutter to 1/60. I used my AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm lens at 55mm. My lights are a Versalight 160 and a MEDALight PG3100ML. They were set approximately 10 feet and 12 feet from the clock.

I took my first shot. The lights washed out everything. After the second shot (f/8), the paneling came into view.At f/11, the paneling was still a bit lighter than natural, but the clock face was readable, but exhibiting glare. At f/16, the paneling was close to its observed shade, and the clock was even more readable. Glare was still present, but expected, because of the curvature of the clock lens.

OK, clocks are not people or pets, but the idea here is to stress the importance of finding out what works and, as was mentioned on the first page, finding a starting point. I was actually testing my lights, to see if they would fire with the camera, and I'm happy to say that that test yielded positive results.

I agree with the comment further up this page, about "it depends," not being much of an answer. Unfortunately, though, what works for one may not work for all. Still, a person needs to have a starting point, and I hope I have supplied that. The best thing I can recommend is to grab a buddy, sit him or her in front of a background, and take some test shots of your own, emphasizing exposure. Set your ISO, start at your widest lens opening, and work smaller. You'll soon see things you like, and you'll have a point to start from.

folkus

Thanks, Doug52332. Glad you had a good time checking thing out. Probably wise not to wake a sleeping wife for this...

philo Loc: philo, ca

if you set you buddy in front of a blank wall the various f stops may not tell you much of anything because dof doesn't come into play.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

philo wrote:

if you set you buddy in front of a blank wall the various f stops may not tell you much of anything because dof doesn't come into play.

Depending on the lens you use, this statement could be true or false. Using a fast tele lens wide open - let's say an 200 F-1.4 - The nose and ears can be out of focus if you focus on the eyes. Using a 50 mm F-1.4, all the features would be in focus. At 4 meters from the subject, the DOF of the 50 mm would be 0.54 meters, (21 inches) whereas with the 200 mm lens, the DOF would be only 30 mm - a little over one inch!

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

CatMarley wrote:

Depending on the lens you use, this statement could be true or false. Using a fast tele lens wide open - let's say an 200 F-1.4 - The nose and ears can be out of focus if you focus on the eyes. Using a 50 mm F-1.4, all the features would be in focus. At 4 meters from the subject, the DOF of the 50 mm would be 0.54 meters, (21 inches) whereas with the 200 mm lens, the DOF would be only 30 mm - a little over one inch!

folkus

Excellent point!! Thanks.

Kuzano

folkus wrote:

I take a lot of photos of people and am wondering if for individual people - from a depth of field point of view there is an ideal f stop to use as a starting point. Thanks so much for your helpful replies.

The smallest two f-stop numbers on your lens! Or smear a dab of vaseline on the front of your portrait lens-very thin. True story!!

blackest Loc: Ireland

Kuzano wrote:

The smallest two f-stop numbers on your lens! Or smear a dab of vaseline on the front of your portrait lens-very thin. True story!!

Vaseline is better used on a uv filter if you are going to use that old trick.