Totally agree and you made some excellent points! I’d also mention that another benefit of stopping down is you will not max out your shutter speed at 1/8000th of a second and requires an ND filter, plus electronic first curtain shutter will start to darken near the top of the frame and bokeh quality is adversely affected.
Another quality video from one of the best photography channels on RUclips. Others could learn much from you. You are clearly a successful photographer who used RUclips to help others rather than use RUclips to help yourself.
Haha me too lol, however I do shoot wide open a lot of the time, but it depends on what I'm shooting. I am a Getty Images photographer and mainly shoot sports and breaking news, with a little bit of portraiture mixed in. When shooting sports, which I do a lot of, I always shoot wide open. I use two or three bodies and a 24-70mm 2.8, 70-200mm 2.8 and a 400mm 2.8 VR and always wide open. Now when shooting breaking news or portraiture I use plenty of different apertures depending on the situation, and I make sure to know the "sweet-spot" of each lens. I own three Nikon 1.4G lenses, the 24, 35 and 85mm and I know the sweet spot for sharpness is f4-5.6 on them. So when I need maximum sharpness I bump them up. Great video for the beginners!
OMG I literally had this same exact conversation today with the "enthusiast photographer" know-it-all at my work - who wouldn't believe what I said. Gotta show him this!
Great thoughts! So many reasons to not shoot wide open all the time. There are plenty of times that bringing the background somewhat in focus (or all-the-way in focus) is a more interesting photo. My biggest reason to not to open up all the time are those times I’m taking a group portraits. If multiple people are in the portrait and are standing in anything other than a shoulder to shoulder line you could find yourself blurring people out of the photo who should be in it.
Great video and properly demonstrated with examples. Sometimes when taking portraits you also need to bring the person into their environment to establish a clearer story. The issues with out of focus backgrounds is that you could be anywhere as the background being so blurry doesn't establish context. In fashion it was always better to have some background in focus adding interest and also so that the client would have reason send you to another country and location for the next shoot! Otherwise it's back to the studio, lol
Darren, you are absolutely right about this. It's a real pet peeve of mine when I hear people obsess about shooting wide open. Every point you made about this are things that I think about when I shoot.
Great points Darren. I'll add that another disadvantage of shooting wide open on longer lenses is that the background is so blurred out you lose all sense of the location. While that can have advantages in some situations it more often than not is a negative. Some photographers will take the time to go to a spot with an amazing view of something like the ocean or beautiful autumn leaves and then blur everything out so that it just becomes a blur of color in the background. They could have stayed in their driveway for that.
I almost never shoot wide open. I have Canon 85mm f1.4 L IS and Sigma 35mm f1.4 art. My favourite aperture on both lenses are f1.8 By stopping 2/3 of the stop image quality improves drastically but I still get plenty shallow depth of field on FF camera. Also I'm not big fan of crop cameras because you forced to shoot wide open if you want to get good bokeh and you always lose sharpness.
🙌🏻 🙌🏻 🙌🏻 Wish this video had been in my life last weekend. I did a studio shoot on Sunday and stayed in 1.8. Looked fine on the camera screen, of course, but the Mac said differently later. Oy.
One of the problems with photographers, myself included, with always shooting wide open is that it is showing that there is a laziness or inability to at least sometimes utilize a deeper focus to include foreground and background elements in your composition. For many of us, the famous portrait photographers we look up to were not afraid to when necessary utilize the full depth of field of their compositions.
I usually buy fast glass because Im usually at its widest aperture. I shoot sports and some events that requires tons of light to perform well. Im usually at iso 6400 or more, so wide aperture lenses are a must for me. Im usually at it widest because I require the separation, but when I shoot video, Im usually at f4/f5.6
(4:10) Just a couple of things: 1) You can use tripod to avoid body movement. Yeah I know it isn't the most practical thing in the world but it offers unmatched accuracy. 2) Focus and recompose is a pain in the butt with the lens wide open. Especially with mid range lenses. Don't do that, period. 3) Instead, you can use off center focusing points. And that takes 5D mk 1&2 out of the game, darn... 4) You can use live view on your DSLR. And if the camera is on the tripod, results can be amazing! That brings Canon's 5Dmk2 back in the game 😄 5) Or even better, use a mirrorless camera, which has focussing points all over, face and eye detection, focus peaking in manual mode etc. As a bonus, you can effortlessly use old manual vintage lenses. Just my two cents...
Life & Times of a MultipleMediaManager™ yeah I know but for those nostalgic people and for a folks who don't need or want latest and greatest and expensive, still kinda usable...
I almost mentioned the part about the tripod - sometimes when you’re out in the field and you have to go from place to place, tripod isn’t always practical. However if you doing a single portrait in one location, then a tripod can and often does make sense
Great advice. 👏 For any noob trying to understand this topic you should try shooting wide open a macro subject like a caterpillar. You will quickly understand depth of field as well as the back and forth movement effects.
Great video . It does seem the last few years people have become way too enamored with bokeh to degree that it has become ridiculous . I’ve never had one of my clients say to me hey that background blur is not creamy enough .
I have been trying to bounce down to a style of shooting that I feel comfortable in. After learning the basics of taking pictures back in the 80s, I finally bought a camera last year. I've bounced between the kit lenses and the DX 35 1.8 I got along to get a fast prime. I'm trying to get used to the prime. Currently trying to get a feel of apertures ranging 2.0 to 2.8, and.... As I said, I'm still figuring things out. Thank you for the vid!
I noticed most of the comments skip ober the fact most lenses are sharpest when stopped down. That's something I hear quite often when aperture is mentioned. I know my prime is sharpest between 2.0 and 4.0. Also that it starts getting difraction starting at 3.5. Lenses are to photographers as swords to swordsmen, so are we not meant to know the strongest setting for our cameras and lenses?
In the manual focus film era , i always shot at least 2 stops from wide open to be 'confidend' . Now, AF is pretty good and lenses have more elements to achieve better sharpness near open . Even on M43, i still shoot 2 stops on primes most of the time , 1 stop if needed and full open once a year.
Yes, I agree that it usually makes sense to stop down a little to improve sharpness and autofocus reliability - especially if you use a DSLR. However if you're for example a Sony A7rIII or A9 shooter and switch to AF-C with activated eye-af, in my experience you can be pretty sure that you'll nail more than 90% of the shots even with an 85mm (or even 105mm) 1,4 lens at 1,4.
Modern lenses with their often rounded apertures and/or increased number of aperture blades even facilitate slightly stopping down to combine pleasing bokeh and critical sharpness. I will sometimes not even hesitate to stop down two stops as that will usually give me peak sharpness and the viewer a sense of place/context, which they wouldn't get if everything was blurred beyond recognition.
New photographers tend to follow more of the RUclips and Instagram photographers rather than actual pros (who's primary job is not social media). I attended Joe McNally's workshop and except for a few images he never went faster than f4-5.6.
Focusing issues for portrait photographers will be slowly, but surely gone with the continous Eye-AF improvements, but I agree with everything else. Also it's important to add: there are specific lenses (The Sigma 85 Art is just like that), where the bokeh QUALITY improves as it is stopped down. It's not as blurry, but the highlighs will be rounder, and the general smoothness will be better. I really loved shooting my Sigma 85 at 1.8 in front of complex backgrounds for example.
people may hate me but find blurry background so overused i wish could get clear image at long end of long zooms often cant bump the f stop enough to offset the background blur and usually have to grab the image fast talking mainly wildlife
Maybe a disadvantage for M4/3 where you do need to shoot your portraits wide open. Although you would agree that Olympus 1.2 PRO is still sharp wide open, but at 1.2 can be too much light. At least with FF you can stop down. Which does bring up an interesting question. 1.8 on a M4/3 sensor with the correct shutter speed, will that actually give you the same exposure as 1.8 on a FF with the same shutter speed and the ISOs set at say 200. Something I have been thinking about.
Jeffrey Wright Jeffrey Wright ...actually it doesn’t affect the deep of field either, unless you move your feet. But maybe that’s what you ment when you said “apparent”.
@@othomsen1 yes, apparent because for the same focal length lens you would move your feet to get the same framing compared to that focal length on another sensor or film size and by moving you're going to affect your depth of field. Nothing to do with m43 though, the same would be true of switching between any sensor/film sizes.
@@othomsen1 I meant that the apparent change to DoF that comes from switching lenses to get the same composition when comparing systems using different sensor or film sizes isn't unique to m43. That is, you would deal with the same issue when comparing any two systems of different sizes. Going from 35mm to medium format would do the same thing. For example, if you were used to a particular composition using say, an 85mm lens on a 35mm camera and then switch to a 6x7 medium format camera, the angle of view you would now get would be roughly equivalent to what a 42mm lens would give you on a 35mm camera. In order to frame up the same composition on your subject (let's say it's a person) you would have to walk closer to them. But, now that you have walked closer to them the distance between the camera has reduced which will change the depth of field.
Spot on Darren for FF DSLR. Please do it again for m43 ML... the Oly 1.2 Pro Primes are excellent wide open and m43 has more DOF plus ML has more accurate AF than DSLR.
Hi Darren. I completely agree with your assessment of shooting wide. But then I watched the next video that pops up, which is your take on 1.4 vs 1.8 lenses. A thought provoking take on the issue, particularly on the cost of a 1.8 vs a 1.4. However, there is something a 1.4 pro lens will generally give you bags of, over a cheaper 1.8, and that's bokeh, or pop, or whatever..... For years I used a Nikon 85 1.8D, and it basically wore out! So, considering the cost, I thought about replacing it with the 1.8G, but then discovered a 1.4D in mint condition second hand at the same price a new 1.8G. So I bought the 1.4D.....and yes I rarely shoot at 1.4, but the D lens on a 36mp body is stunning, much better than my old 1.8D, the quality of the backgrounds is wonderful, and that's in comparison to a lens that has a 9 bladed aperture (the 1.8D) where as the G series does not. I haven't compared the 1.4D to the new 1.8G of course, maybe that would be a better cost benefit comparison to 1.8G vs 1.4G. Your thoughts? was I right to go 1.4D over 1.8G. (it is a better built lens for all that!)
Fantastic insights, thank you! The point I was making in the 1.8 vs. 1.4 video was from a clients perspective - I agree, that we as photographers can see differences between lenses (bokeh, sharpness, contrast, etc), but if you showed the same portrait taken in the same place with the same lighting with a 1.8 and a 1.4 lens both shot at f/2 to someone who isn't as into photography and gear as we all are, it's unlikely they would notice a difference in terms of results.
@@DarrenMiles Yep, its just the pixel peepers that notice the difference. I think that's the problem with me, and with digital photography. I don't remember being as demanding of my results in 35mm days....cost me a lot less then too! Stay safe and keep the content coming Darren. Blessings to you and yours.
I think we all do that at first. Then when you are hired for your first job and 50/50 of the pictures are in focus. I shoot live music photography in some dark dark places. I still have to shoot wide open a lot . This is why so many music photography pictures by folks have the clarity slide pushed up . Trying to create a hard edge somewhere
What's up Darren, you've got a point because I've been shooting medium format film and I also notice when it's super bright and I'm forces to shoot f5.6 or f8 my images just look cleaner and sharper which makes sense, that being said for my talking head videos I do shoot f2.0 on my lumix 25mm 1.7 to get that separation but I am learning what you said is something to consider about overly shalliw focus.
I got Canon 50 and 85 f1.2, you can always stop it down if you need to, but I rarely want to. I pick them when I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be shooting wide open, otherwise I'll just take a zoom within the range f2.8 or f4. Tho I only shoot as a hobby, so I rarely care what anyone thinks of my photos.
Great advice as usual, but you forgot to mention that shooting at the widest aperture also increases the severity of Chromatic Aberration / fringing with high-contrast subjects and backgrounds/light :-)
Well my XT3 focus points are pretty customizable so I hardly miss focus and I shoot long burst. But I agree though if I want a sharper image I would not shoot wide open when the situation allows it.
Agree, up to a point. But if you’re in sunny Florida shooting portraits with studio lighting and your full frame camera, it’s a little different to shooting Wildlife with an APS-C in latitudes with poorer light. Both in terms of light capture, noise and comparative depth of field. Your point still stands, just not as much.
I have no time for this, seemingly new, concept of bokeh...In the days when you were shooting portraiths, head shots etc with film using ASA/ISO 64 Kodachrome, you clearly needed a narrow depth of field and also all the light you could get if shooting in less than sunny conditions I really do not know what this more recent fixation with "bokeh", or whatever other trendy tag you wish to add as a descriptor adds to what photographers have known and techniques that have been used for many, many years.
Hello Darren, that maybe seemed right 5 years ago. But nowadays with Eye-AF and continuos focus the photographer and the subject can move and everything stays perfect in focus wide open though. Second, if you experienced very good glass like modern Zeiss you have to take a very super close look to see a tiny difference between wide open and closed down. So technically thats really not the point anymore! But in terms of composition and aesthetics i totally agree with you, its stupid to shoot always wide open just because you can. It bores me to see only blurry backgrounds as well. Best regards Rainer
I thought you were gonna say lenses aren't at their sharpest wide open. Your customers could have had a little more bokeh for their money! Just kidding, though some might say stopping down is lazy and you should just take more pictures if you have a low hit rate. For a professional I can understand workflow and time are essential and no client will ever complain about too little bokeh. Playing around with the Canon RF 50mm F1.2 BBF is pretty handy wide open and already tack sharp. So I do feel it'd be a shame to stop it down, especially cause all my surroundings suck and I want to blur that depressing film noir stuff out.
I understand your point, but at the end you admit that shooting wide open is fine if the maximum aperture is f2 of higher. I think your title should refer to the drawbacks of "extremely wide apertures". such as 1.4 or wider.
Great idea for a series, and as an amateur it's exactly the sort of content I need! One question: does exactly the same rationale apply in the M43 world, eg when using an M ZUIKO 75mm F1.8 lens? Yours from slightly chilly, windy, North county San Diego :-)
So lets say I want to shoot all of the portraits I take at F 2.2 just to ensure that everything is in focus that I want to be in focus. is there a difference in quality between turning an 85mm 1.8 down to 2.2 vs. turning an 85mm 1.4 down to 2.2?
That’s a great question, I can answer it based on my professional experience, even stopping down a little will yield better/sharper results on both lenses. But if you want to get into deep technical analysis you may want to take a look at a site like optical limits or DXO Mark
Funny, I have a site but didn't use Square Space. I must be a complete loser. Anyhoo, I agree with your take in this video and realized this a few years ago. The margin for error is sooo small, especially if the lens isn't stabilized and you don't have IBIS. By the way, I'm coming to you from cold....snowy, Gatineau Quebec!
Those new enormous , heavy and pricey primes exist to answer the obsession of sharpness and bokeh on current hi-res bodies ... but my wallet and my back prefer my PL 25mm f1.4 at f2.8 on my G85...
Errm, for normal shooting portraits, what do you recommend that the DoF should be? would 5 inch be enough to see something from the rest of the head (not just the eyes)?
f/4... Your distance from the subject can alter your DOF as well. EG if your subject is 20 feet away, the DOF at f/1.4 is considerably wider than it is at 5 feet... Use the DOF Calculator that Iinked to in the video - it'll give you some ideas about aperture, focal length and distance from the subject to give you your best aperture for the look you desire.
Hey Darren I sold all my M43 kit and jumped into the Z6 and Z7 and the new native lenses are soooooo sharp i was thinking that maybe you would be the guy to look to for feature settings and example HowTo videos I know your a Nikon user and was hoping that maybe you trying out the Z system Thanks for all you do Regards, rick
The reasons to shoot wide open or not should be based on your artistic vision -- sorry if the sounds painfully cheesy. The problem with blown out backgrounds is you blow out the environmental context, which often adds a lot to the image. Also nose and ears are often out of focus. Don't be afraid to stop down or use wide angle lenses to do portraits.
Excellent points/teaching. And photography!. Easy to go too bokeh on the brain. What is supposedly the hallmark of the pro (fast glass shot wide-open) can become a mere repetitive gimmick. Used to shoot a manual Canon 800mm F5.6 (shooting primarily surfing) in the film era. Heard that at its nearest focusing distance (& wide-open) that lens had a depth of field of one inch. Point being,whenever I could drop down to F8-11,I welcomed it!
NOT a problem if you use Sony's EyeAF. So yes, I can shoot wide open, with AF-C, 10fps and nail almost every shot. That's the way I shoot weddings. If I shoot couples, yes I stoped down. If I shoot a group I stop down. I own lenses that are very sharp wide open but I only use 1.4 and 1.8 lenses to maintain the image quality. I don't use zooms.
Wow.. So all those Videos by Bokeah BoooKa Bok Boys are all B.. Balls after all! Thanks for bringing back real Photography sense..Take any lens and you need F4 F5.6 to get the subjects head, Ears Hair and shoulders all sharp unless your repro is facebook size.
I am in pursuit of producing sharp photos..and have been researching... this video is going to be a great help.( And like the fact that you even gave examples) thanks again..... your efforts were not invain
I also think that people are misled by referring to glass as “fast.” Every task I have to shoot ultimately will require a specific Aperture in my judgement. So why do people sit there and say “oh that lens is so so fast !” As if they are always going to shoot it wide open.... good luck shooting architecture wide open or a group of subjects wide open or anything that you want to enjoy the background. Even architecture at night still is not benefited by a 1.2 lens in my use cases because I have to shoot it at f5.6 regardless!
Not completely - I shoot a lot in low light and I prefer full frame in general - still have all of my Olympus lenses, but no Olympus Camera bodies - only a Panasonic GH5 - which I still use for VIDEO - I want an em-1 Mark ii - not sold on the EM-1 X...
They dont ruin my images because Shooting wide open is only one little bit of my formula. Newbies look at the background but dont pay attention to the actual content
@Phil Jones65 It doesn't. Bokeh is anglicised from the Japanese "ボケ" While one direct translation would be the word "blur" that isn't how words used in context are interpreted. ボケ is used to describe the quality of the out of focus areas in a photograph, not just there being blur itself, and not the quantity or thinness of the depth of field. It's the aesthetic quality of the blurred areas. A good way to understand the difference between a directly translated word and a properly interpreted one that considers the original meaning in the language it came from is the word "kindergarten", which directly translated would be "children garden". Because of the analogous idea of garden seeds being planted, fertilized, and watered to help them develop into fully grown plants, and children being taught the basics of education to learn and develop into well adjusted and educated adults, it can be understood that "kindergarten" doesn't mean a place where you literally plant a seed that you will water and a child will form. This is the same thing going on with the word ボケ but it just isn't familiar because Japanese isn't as similar to English as German is or other European languages are. If you're interested in learning more about the subject, here is a very good article by a professional translator. www.kevinhendzel.com/translation-is-not-about-words-its-about-what-the-words-are-about/
@@tallaganda83 That's my point, most people don't know what bokeh means. Apple is even running ads now using the word not only incorrectly but as a verb. That's just making things even worse. Also, what do you mean over the top? I only wrote one paragraph.
I really dislike seeing sharp eyes and a blurry nose tip... just puts me off. The nose is usually in the middle of the frame for such shots and my eyes instantly goes to that. People with very dimensional faces aren't suitable with those f/1.2 or faster glass. I don't know if it's just me, I want the nose and eyes, along with most of the hair to be sharp. Blurriness puts me off. But then I don't do portraits so my opinion is as good as Joe Blow's.
many ppl want the rest of the face slightly out of focus to get smoother skin "naturally" and this is specially important for the pores at the tip of the nose, usually it is there that they are the most apparent. But 1.8 in normal portaits (3/4s) blurs them noses well enough. The other point is DSLRs (not mirrorless) are terrible to focus exactly on the eyeball. The focus is phase-detecting, i.e. it really looks at the beam distance and the point will almost certainly hit the face and not the eye. Actually, many photographers get best results by having the lens calibrated to slight backfocus and hit the cheek. It is easier to use 1.8 or 2.0 and be happy.
@@chcomes Oh yeah another thing that puts me off is extremely smooth skin, making a human look like a doll. It's unnatural to me, the skin has texture, it's not smooth like butter. Yes, DSLRs do fall short when it comes to AF due to the mechanics of having a mirror. Luckily my work is strictly manual. The blur for f/2 or 1.8, or 2.8 on longer ie 200mm lenses look great enough to me. I've seen a handful of f1.2 and 0.95 portraits, most are not my cup of tea I'm afraid.
The site he showed is useful for seeing exactly what the depth of field will be at a given distance from your subject. In a lot of cases backing up from your subject can help bring more of the face into focus. People get so close that 1.2 becomes razor thin... they need to understand that DOF is a percentage of your distance from the subject, not some fixed measurement ie depth of field of 1.2 is not always 3”
Totally agree and you made some excellent points! I’d also mention that another benefit of stopping down is you will not max out your shutter speed at 1/8000th of a second and requires an ND filter, plus electronic first curtain shutter will start to darken near the top of the frame and bokeh quality is adversely affected.
This is so true. Haven't used my f1.2 wide open in months. I stay around f4-f8
Another quality video from one of the best photography channels on RUclips. Others could learn much from you. You are clearly a successful photographer who used RUclips to help others rather than use RUclips to help yourself.
It always makes me laugh when people say, “I only shoot wide open“. 😂🤦🏼♂️
I usually pretend not to hear that clearly and say "pardon me" twice, or three times. They repeat that like a chanting lol
Haha me too lol, however I do shoot wide open a lot of the time, but it depends on what I'm shooting. I am a Getty Images photographer and mainly shoot sports and breaking news, with a little bit of portraiture mixed in. When shooting sports, which I do a lot of, I always shoot wide open. I use two or three bodies and a 24-70mm 2.8, 70-200mm 2.8 and a 400mm 2.8 VR and always wide open. Now when shooting breaking news or portraiture I use plenty of different apertures depending on the situation, and I make sure to know the "sweet-spot" of each lens. I own three Nikon 1.4G lenses, the 24, 35 and 85mm and I know the sweet spot for sharpness is f4-5.6 on them. So when I need maximum sharpness I bump them up. Great video for the beginners!
@SwitchRich6, exactly! 👍🏻
Those are terrible fotographer relying on blurring background
OMG I literally had this same exact conversation today with the "enthusiast photographer" know-it-all at my work - who wouldn't believe what I said. Gotta show him this!
Agreed, mate. Had an expensive Nikkor f1.4, but had better results at f2. Now have a Fuji f1.2 but still shooting at f2. Thanks, mate.
David McC666 I’ve got the f2 Fuji lenses for that reason among others.
@@MrTShbib Hi, mate. Love my Fuji 35 f2. Thanks.
Daniel Spaniel you’re right, but I cant justify the price of the faster Fuji lenses since I’m just a beginner hobbyist.
You've not watched the angry photographers video on Nikkor lens?
Great thoughts! So many reasons to not shoot wide open all the time.
There are plenty of times that bringing the background somewhat in focus (or all-the-way in focus) is a more interesting photo.
My biggest reason to not to open up all the time are those times I’m taking a group portraits. If multiple people are in the portrait and are standing in anything other than a shoulder to shoulder line you could find yourself blurring people out of the photo who should be in it.
Great video and properly demonstrated with examples. Sometimes when taking portraits you also need to bring the person into their environment to establish a clearer story. The issues with out of focus backgrounds is that you could be anywhere as the background being so blurry doesn't establish context. In fashion it was always better to have some background in focus adding interest and also so that the client would have reason send you to another country and location for the next shoot! Otherwise it's back to the studio, lol
Darren, you are absolutely right about this. It's a real pet peeve of mine when I hear people obsess about shooting wide open. Every point you made about this are things that I think about when I shoot.
Great points Darren. I'll add that another disadvantage of shooting wide open on longer lenses is that the background is so blurred out you lose all sense of the location. While that can have advantages in some situations it more often than not is a negative. Some photographers will take the time to go to a spot with an amazing view of something like the ocean or beautiful autumn leaves and then blur everything out so that it just becomes a blur of color in the background. They could have stayed in their driveway for that.
I almost never shoot wide open. I have Canon 85mm f1.4 L IS and Sigma 35mm f1.4 art. My favourite aperture on both lenses are f1.8
By stopping 2/3 of the stop image quality improves drastically but I still get plenty shallow depth of field on FF camera. Also I'm not big fan of crop cameras because you forced to shoot wide open if you want to get good bokeh and you always lose sharpness.
🙌🏻 🙌🏻 🙌🏻 Wish this video had been in my life last weekend. I did a studio shoot on Sunday and stayed in 1.8. Looked fine on the camera screen, of course, but the Mac said differently later. Oy.
Always treat wide aperture as brightness assistance for both auto and manual focus.
One of the problems with photographers, myself included, with always shooting wide open is that it is showing that there is a laziness or inability to at least sometimes utilize a deeper focus to include foreground and background elements in your composition. For many of us, the famous portrait photographers we look up to were not afraid to when necessary utilize the full depth of field of their compositions.
Really glad to hear this from a pro. I am one of these photographers who has ruined plenty of shots for being too wide. Great tips
Great video! Thanks for this tip for this beginner!
Another reason is, if you focus and recompose using the center focus point, then shooting wide open will almost always produce a blurry picture.
One of the best RUclips photo vloggers
I usually buy fast glass because Im usually at its widest aperture. I shoot sports and some events that requires tons of light to perform well. Im usually at iso 6400 or more, so wide aperture lenses are a must for me. Im usually at it widest because I require the separation, but when I shoot video, Im usually at f4/f5.6
1 Dislike is from Square Space.
(4:10) Just a couple of things:
1) You can use tripod to avoid body movement. Yeah I know it isn't the most practical thing in the world but it offers unmatched accuracy.
2) Focus and recompose is a pain in the butt with the lens wide open. Especially with mid range lenses. Don't do that, period.
3) Instead, you can use off center focusing points. And that takes 5D mk 1&2 out of the game, darn...
4) You can use live view on your DSLR. And if the camera is on the tripod, results can be amazing! That brings Canon's 5Dmk2 back in the game 😄
5) Or even better, use a mirrorless camera, which has focussing points all over, face and eye detection, focus peaking in manual mode etc. As a bonus, you can effortlessly use old manual vintage lenses.
Just my two cents...
No. 5 takes 5Dmk2 as well as mk3 and four back out the game…
Life & Times of a MultipleMediaManager™ yeah I know but for those nostalgic people and for a folks who don't need or want latest and greatest and expensive, still kinda usable...
I almost mentioned the part about the tripod - sometimes when you’re out in the field and you have to go from place to place, tripod isn’t always practical. However if you doing a single portrait in one location, then a tripod can and often does make sense
Excellent video. Not brought to you by Square Space - Perfect!
That intro line, lol.
Great advice. 👏 For any noob trying to understand this topic you should try shooting wide open a macro subject like a caterpillar. You will quickly understand depth of field as well as the back and forth movement effects.
Great video . It does seem the last few years people have become way too enamored with bokeh to degree that it has become ridiculous . I’ve never had one of my clients say to me hey that background blur is not creamy enough .
I have been trying to bounce down to a style of shooting that I feel comfortable in.
After learning the basics of taking pictures back in the 80s, I finally bought a camera last year.
I've bounced between the kit lenses and the DX 35 1.8 I got along to get a fast prime.
I'm trying to get used to the prime.
Currently trying to get a feel of apertures ranging 2.0 to 2.8, and....
As I said, I'm still figuring things out.
Thank you for the vid!
I noticed most of the comments skip ober the fact most lenses are sharpest when stopped down.
That's something I hear quite often when aperture is mentioned.
I know my prime is sharpest between 2.0 and 4.0.
Also that it starts getting difraction starting at 3.5.
Lenses are to photographers as swords to swordsmen, so are we not meant to know the strongest setting for our cameras and lenses?
Great video, great content, perfect language. Thank you!
This is very helpful! I'll try f2 on my sigma art!
Good points made. Thanks for posting. I always learn something from your videos.
Great video !~ Thanks !~ Gonna start stopping down 1 stop from widest possible aperture....
In the manual focus film era , i always shot at least 2 stops from wide open to be 'confidend' . Now, AF is pretty good and lenses have more elements to achieve better sharpness near open . Even on M43, i still shoot 2 stops on primes most of the time , 1 stop if needed and full open once a year.
Yes, I agree that it usually makes sense to stop down a little to improve sharpness and autofocus reliability - especially if you use a DSLR. However if you're for example a Sony A7rIII or A9 shooter and switch to AF-C with activated eye-af, in my experience you can be pretty sure that you'll nail more than 90% of the shots even with an 85mm (or even 105mm) 1,4 lens at 1,4.
Modern lenses with their often rounded apertures and/or increased number of aperture blades even facilitate slightly stopping down to combine pleasing bokeh and critical sharpness. I will sometimes not even hesitate to stop down two stops as that will usually give me peak sharpness and the viewer a sense of place/context, which they wouldn't get if everything was blurred beyond recognition.
New photographers tend to follow more of the RUclips and Instagram photographers rather than actual pros (who's primary job is not social media). I attended Joe McNally's workshop and except for a few images he never went faster than f4-5.6.
Focusing issues for portrait photographers will be slowly, but surely gone with the continous Eye-AF improvements, but I agree with everything else.
Also it's important to add: there are specific lenses (The Sigma 85 Art is just like that), where the bokeh QUALITY improves as it is stopped down. It's not as blurry, but the highlighs will be rounder, and the general smoothness will be better. I really loved shooting my Sigma 85 at 1.8 in front of complex backgrounds for example.
Outstanding update Darren. Much appreciate it.
people may hate me but find blurry background so overused i wish could get clear image at long end of long zooms often cant bump the f stop enough to offset the background blur and usually have to grab the image fast talking mainly wildlife
Great tip Darren. Thanks !!
Maybe a disadvantage for M4/3 where you do need to shoot your portraits wide open. Although you would agree that Olympus 1.2 PRO is still sharp wide open, but at 1.2 can be too much light. At least with FF you can stop down. Which does bring up an interesting question. 1.8 on a M4/3 sensor with the correct shutter speed, will that actually give you the same exposure as 1.8 on a FF with the same shutter speed and the ISOs set at say 200. Something I have been thinking about.
Yes, exposure is exposure regardless of sensor size. Crop factor effects apparent depth of field but not exposure settings.
Jeffrey Wright Jeffrey Wright ...actually it doesn’t affect the deep of field either, unless you move your feet.
But maybe that’s what you ment when you said “apparent”.
@@othomsen1 yes, apparent because for the same focal length lens you would move your feet to get the same framing compared to that focal length on another sensor or film size and by moving you're going to affect your depth of field. Nothing to do with m43 though, the same would be true of switching between any sensor/film sizes.
Jeffrey Wright Yeah, that’s what I meant.
But why doesn’t have anything to do with M43?
@@othomsen1 I meant that the apparent change to DoF that comes from switching lenses to get the same composition when comparing systems using different sensor or film sizes isn't unique to m43. That is, you would deal with the same issue when comparing any two systems of different sizes. Going from 35mm to medium format would do the same thing. For example, if you were used to a particular composition using say, an 85mm lens on a 35mm camera and then switch to a 6x7 medium format camera, the angle of view you would now get would be roughly equivalent to what a 42mm lens would give you on a 35mm camera. In order to frame up the same composition on your subject (let's say it's a person) you would have to walk closer to them. But, now that you have walked closer to them the distance between the camera has reduced which will change the depth of field.
Thanks, great tips to keep in mind.
Spot on Darren for FF DSLR. Please do it again for m43 ML... the Oly 1.2 Pro Primes are excellent wide open and m43 has more DOF plus ML has more accurate AF than DSLR.
Hi Darren. I completely agree with your assessment of shooting wide. But then I watched the next video that pops up, which is your take on 1.4 vs 1.8 lenses. A thought provoking take on the issue, particularly on the cost of a 1.8 vs a 1.4. However, there is something a 1.4 pro lens will generally give you bags of, over a cheaper 1.8, and that's bokeh, or pop, or whatever..... For years I used a Nikon 85 1.8D, and it basically wore out! So, considering the cost, I thought about replacing it with the 1.8G, but then discovered a 1.4D in mint condition second hand at the same price a new 1.8G. So I bought the 1.4D.....and yes I rarely shoot at 1.4, but the D lens on a 36mp body is stunning, much better than my old 1.8D, the quality of the backgrounds is wonderful, and that's in comparison to a lens that has a 9 bladed aperture (the 1.8D) where as the G series does not. I haven't compared the 1.4D to the new 1.8G of course, maybe that would be a better cost benefit comparison to 1.8G vs 1.4G. Your thoughts? was I right to go 1.4D over 1.8G. (it is a better built lens for all that!)
Fantastic insights, thank you! The point I was making in the 1.8 vs. 1.4 video was from a clients perspective - I agree, that we as photographers can see differences between lenses (bokeh, sharpness, contrast, etc), but if you showed the same portrait taken in the same place with the same lighting with a 1.8 and a 1.4 lens both shot at f/2 to someone who isn't as into photography and gear as we all are, it's unlikely they would notice a difference in terms of results.
@@DarrenMiles Yep, its just the pixel peepers that notice the difference. I think that's the problem with me, and with digital photography. I don't remember being as demanding of my results in 35mm days....cost me a lot less then too! Stay safe and keep the content coming Darren. Blessings to you and yours.
Thank you for your professional insight. Much appreciated.
I think we all do that at first. Then when you are hired for your first job and 50/50 of the pictures are in focus. I shoot live music photography in some dark dark places. I still have to shoot wide open a lot . This is why so many music photography pictures by folks have the clarity slide pushed up . Trying to create a hard edge somewhere
Some very sensible advice. Keep it up
What's up Darren, you've got a point because I've been shooting medium format film and I also notice when it's super bright and I'm forces to shoot f5.6 or f8 my images just look cleaner and sharper which makes sense, that being said for my talking head videos I do shoot f2.0 on my lumix 25mm 1.7 to get that separation but I am learning what you said is something to consider about overly shalliw focus.
Good point Darren...
I got Canon 50 and 85 f1.2, you can always stop it down if you need to, but I rarely want to. I pick them when I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be shooting wide open, otherwise I'll just take a zoom within the range f2.8 or f4. Tho I only shoot as a hobby, so I rarely care what anyone thinks of my photos.
That's a good tip .. I nearly always shoot my 1.8's at 2 or 2.2 and they still look great.
right on. cheers. j.
great video Darren. cheers
Great advice as usual, but you forgot to mention that shooting at the widest aperture also increases the severity of Chromatic Aberration / fringing with high-contrast subjects and backgrounds/light :-)
Well my XT3 focus points are pretty customizable so I hardly miss focus and I shoot long burst. But I agree though if I want a sharper image I would not shoot wide open when the situation allows it.
I always use my tripod since the latest 90s kind I got used to it if I don’t I will missed it. But you’re right if you don’t have a tripod. 😎
Great tip, enjoyed that a lot!
Agree, up to a point. But if you’re in sunny Florida shooting portraits with studio lighting and your full frame camera, it’s a little different to shooting Wildlife with an APS-C in latitudes with poorer light. Both in terms of light capture, noise and comparative depth of field. Your point still stands, just not as much.
I have no time for this, seemingly new, concept of bokeh...In the days when you were shooting portraiths, head shots etc with film using ASA/ISO 64 Kodachrome, you clearly needed a narrow depth of field and also all the light you could get if shooting in less than sunny conditions
I really do not know what this more recent fixation with "bokeh", or whatever other trendy tag you wish to add as a descriptor adds to what photographers have known and techniques that have been used for many, many years.
Hello Darren,
that maybe seemed right 5 years ago. But nowadays with Eye-AF and continuos focus the photographer and the subject can move and everything stays perfect in focus wide open though.
Second, if you experienced very good glass like modern Zeiss you have to take a very super close look to see a tiny difference between wide open and closed down. So technically thats really not the point anymore!
But in terms of composition and aesthetics i totally agree with you, its stupid to shoot always wide open just because you can. It bores me to see only blurry backgrounds as well.
Best regards
Rainer
I thought you were gonna say lenses aren't at their sharpest wide open. Your customers could have had a little more bokeh for their money! Just kidding, though some might say stopping down is lazy and you should just take more pictures if you have a low hit rate. For a professional I can understand workflow and time are essential and no client will ever complain about too little bokeh.
Playing around with the Canon RF 50mm F1.2 BBF is pretty handy wide open and already tack sharp. So I do feel it'd be a shame to stop it down, especially cause all my surroundings suck and I want to blur that depressing film noir stuff out.
I understand your point, but at the end you admit that shooting wide open is fine if the maximum aperture is f2 of higher. I think your title should refer to the drawbacks of "extremely wide apertures". such as 1.4 or wider.
very informative.... ? how does this apply to canon"s 24-105mm f/4 L lens
Thank you for share this tip for us Darren
thank you for this Video man.
Great idea for a series, and as an amateur it's exactly the sort of content I need! One question: does exactly the same rationale apply in the M43 world, eg when using an M ZUIKO 75mm F1.8 lens? Yours from slightly chilly, windy, North county San Diego :-)
So lets say I want to shoot all of the portraits I take at F 2.2 just to ensure that everything is in focus that I want to be in focus. is there a difference in quality between turning an 85mm 1.8 down to 2.2 vs. turning an 85mm 1.4 down to 2.2?
That’s a great question, I can answer it based on my professional experience, even stopping down a little will yield better/sharper results on both lenses. But if you want to get into deep technical analysis you may want to take a look at a site like optical limits or DXO Mark
I agree even more with manual lenses
Funny, I have a site but didn't use Square Space. I must be a complete loser. Anyhoo, I agree with your take in this video and realized this a few years ago. The margin for error is sooo small, especially if the lens isn't stabilized and you don't have IBIS. By the way, I'm coming to you from cold....snowy, Gatineau Quebec!
Excellent video. Exactly spot on.
Those new enormous , heavy and pricey primes exist to answer the obsession of sharpness and bokeh on current hi-res bodies ... but my wallet and my back prefer my PL 25mm f1.4 at f2.8 on my G85...
Awesome video good job
Errm, for normal shooting portraits, what do you recommend that the DoF should be? would 5 inch be enough to see something from the rest of the head (not just the eyes)?
f/4... Your distance from the subject can alter your DOF as well. EG if your subject is 20 feet away, the DOF at f/1.4 is considerably wider than it is at 5 feet... Use the DOF Calculator that Iinked to in the video - it'll give you some ideas about aperture, focal length and distance from the subject to give you your best aperture for the look you desire.
What's Square Space?
Hey Darren
I sold all my M43 kit and jumped into the Z6 and Z7 and the new native lenses are soooooo sharp
i was thinking that maybe you would be the guy to look to for feature settings and example HowTo videos
I know your a Nikon user and was hoping that maybe you trying out the Z system
Thanks for all you do
Regards, rick
The reasons to shoot wide open or not should be based on your artistic vision -- sorry if the sounds painfully cheesy. The problem with blown out backgrounds is you blow out the environmental context, which often adds a lot to the image. Also nose and ears are often out of focus. Don't be afraid to stop down or use wide angle lenses to do portraits.
Excellent points/teaching. And photography!. Easy to go too bokeh on the brain. What is supposedly the hallmark of the pro (fast glass shot wide-open) can become a mere repetitive gimmick. Used to shoot a manual Canon 800mm F5.6 (shooting primarily surfing) in the film era. Heard that at its nearest focusing distance (& wide-open) that lens had a depth of field of one inch. Point being,whenever I could drop down to F8-11,I welcomed it!
NOT a problem if you use Sony's EyeAF.
So yes, I can shoot wide open, with AF-C, 10fps and nail almost every shot. That's the way I shoot weddings. If I shoot couples, yes I stoped down. If I shoot a group I stop down. I own lenses that are very sharp wide open but I only use 1.4 and 1.8 lenses to maintain the image quality. I don't use zooms.
Wow.. So all those Videos by Bokeah BoooKa Bok Boys are all B.. Balls after all! Thanks for bringing back real Photography sense..Take any lens and you need F4 F5.6 to get the subjects head, Ears Hair and shoulders all sharp unless your repro is facebook size.
I like this good practical content...
Great video 👏👏👏
I am in pursuit of producing sharp photos..and have been researching... this video is going to be a great help.( And like the fact that you even gave examples) thanks again..... your efforts were not invain
Very good tips and advice -- but your video title made me think that I am going to burn out my retinas shooting wide open!!!!!
What’s the dreamy edm song at the end?
It’s a song written by a friend of mine, Wayne Leinen jr. He’s written quite a few for my videos.
Thanks Darren
Good tips, thanks.
I also think that people are misled by referring to glass as “fast.” Every task I have to shoot ultimately will require a specific Aperture in my judgement. So why do people sit there and say “oh that lens is so so fast !” As if they are always going to shoot it wide open.... good luck shooting architecture wide open or a group of subjects wide open or anything that you want to enjoy the background. Even architecture at night still is not benefited by a 1.2 lens in my use cases because I have to shoot it at f5.6 regardless!
God I wish I had your beautiful weather it’s always raining here in Ireland 😢
All the example pics had a far background (reason for the background blurr)....just wanted to point this out for beginners
thank you much
Also whenever possible put the camera on a tripod.
08:27 shot at??
f/2 :-)
NOT brought to you by Triangle Space. LMFAO
BTW, did you drop M43 gear?
Not completely - I shoot a lot in low light and I prefer full frame in general - still have all of my Olympus lenses, but no Olympus Camera bodies - only a Panasonic GH5 - which I still use for VIDEO - I want an em-1 Mark ii - not sold on the EM-1 X...
Darren Miles well if you ever want to purge you collection of M43 lenses...just let me know (;
They dont ruin my images because Shooting wide open is only one little bit of my formula. Newbies look at the background but dont pay attention to the actual content
The ONLY lens that I will try to never stop down is the Canon 135L f/2. Even at f/2.2 you can see hard edge aperture blades in the bokeh. LOL
Yes.
That thumbnail lol
Your voice and way of speaking sounds somewhat like Tim Cook (no offense or judgement, just a funny observation!)
I’m so sick of Bokeh for the sake of Bokeh
I'm sick of people not using the term bokeh correctly.
@Phil Jones65 bokeh doesn't mean blur.
@Phil Jones65 It doesn't. Bokeh is anglicised from the Japanese "ボケ" While one direct translation would be the word "blur" that isn't how words used in context are interpreted. ボケ is used to describe the quality of the out of focus areas in a photograph, not just there being blur itself, and not the quantity or thinness of the depth of field. It's the aesthetic quality of the blurred areas. A good way to understand the difference between a directly translated word and a properly interpreted one that considers the original meaning in the language it came from is the word "kindergarten", which directly translated would be "children garden". Because of the analogous idea of garden seeds being planted, fertilized, and watered to help them develop into fully grown plants, and children being taught the basics of education to learn and develop into well adjusted and educated adults, it can be understood that "kindergarten" doesn't mean a place where you literally plant a seed that you will water and a child will form. This is the same thing going on with the word ボケ but it just isn't familiar because Japanese isn't as similar to English as German is or other European languages are. If you're interested in learning more about the subject, here is a very good article by a professional translator. www.kevinhendzel.com/translation-is-not-about-words-its-about-what-the-words-are-about/
Jeffrey Wright That is way over the top mate, 99.99% of people know exactly what I’m talking about including you.
@@tallaganda83 That's my point, most people don't know what bokeh means. Apple is even running ads now using the word not only incorrectly but as a verb. That's just making things even worse. Also, what do you mean over the top? I only wrote one paragraph.
I really dislike seeing sharp eyes and a blurry nose tip... just puts me off. The nose is usually in the middle of the frame for such shots and my eyes instantly goes to that. People with very dimensional faces aren't suitable with those f/1.2 or faster glass. I don't know if it's just me, I want the nose and eyes, along with most of the hair to be sharp. Blurriness puts me off. But then I don't do portraits so my opinion is as good as Joe Blow's.
many ppl want the rest of the face slightly out of focus to get smoother skin "naturally" and this is specially important for the pores at the tip of the nose, usually it is there that they are the most apparent.
But 1.8 in normal portaits (3/4s) blurs them noses well enough.
The other point is DSLRs (not mirrorless) are terrible to focus exactly on the eyeball. The focus is phase-detecting, i.e. it really looks at the beam distance and the point will almost certainly hit the face and not the eye. Actually, many photographers get best results by having the lens calibrated to slight backfocus and hit the cheek.
It is easier to use 1.8 or 2.0 and be happy.
@@chcomes Oh yeah another thing that puts me off is extremely smooth skin, making a human look like a doll. It's unnatural to me, the skin has texture, it's not smooth like butter.
Yes, DSLRs do fall short when it comes to AF due to the mechanics of having a mirror. Luckily my work is strictly manual. The blur for f/2 or 1.8, or 2.8 on longer ie 200mm lenses look great enough to me. I've seen a handful of f1.2 and 0.95 portraits, most are not my cup of tea I'm afraid.
The site he showed is useful for seeing exactly what the depth of field will be at a given distance from your subject. In a lot of cases backing up from your subject can help bring more of the face into focus. People get so close that 1.2 becomes razor thin... they need to understand that DOF is a percentage of your distance from the subject, not some fixed measurement ie depth of field of 1.2 is not always 3”
I only shoot stopped down ha!
If you are not going to shoot at f1.8, f1.4, f1.2 and going to stop down then buy yourselves some f2.8/f4 glass and save yourself a lot of cash.