Hung Up On “Default” Apertures?

[John Layton]

Mine is f/32 when using my 150, 210mm and 305mm lenses, and f/22 for the 90 and 110mm lenses…what’s yours?

Not that I use these apertures exclusively, mind you - its just that they tend to be my “go-to’s” as they’ve each seemed to offer the best compromises between sharpness and depth, in addition to helping to accommodate potential (mostly environmentally induced) variables in the actual location and shape of the film “plane” at the moment of exposure.

But is this (tendency towards defaults) a hang up? For me I think it sometimes is, and I often find myself admiring the works of those photographers who make wonderful use of wide apertures and minimal depth of focus - thinking to myself, “jeesh…I gotta try this more!”

Then again…this (“default aperture mode”), in addition to the practical applications as outlined above, is also how I tend to interpret the world through my camera. But could this be a “chicken or the egg” issue? The cart leading the horse? Hmmm…

How about you? And any thoughts of changing it up?

Oh...I should probably take a looks at Philip's "Diffractophobia" thread (hey, wasn't that a scary movie?)

[Nodda Duma]

Interesting thought, John. I often -- though not exclusively -- shoot in the f/8 - f/11 region. I think that comes down to personal preference. I enjoy the effect of depth of field, lens character, and exposure times on the resulting photograph when shooting at those apertures.

[xkaes]

None for me. My first thoughts are always "DOF" & "Shutter Speed"???????????

After thinking about those, I have to think about what film will get me closest. Then I can wiggle the speed and f-stop -- usually easy, but sometimes a tug of war.

A few times ND filters have helped.

[linhofbiker]

With newly aquired 75mm f/4.5 Biogon I am determined to use the maximum aperture for some images.

Adjust the plane of focus as needed within the lens's image circle if possible.

If that fails, then stop down gradually until the image is located within the desired focus.

If this still fails, then stop down to f/64 and let diffraction impact the result.

No default aperture here, just try it and see if you get what your minds eye had "seen".

[jp]

With my Aero Ektar, I shoot either wide open (F2.5ish) or sometimes F4.
With my sharp lenses, I tend to like thin depth of field for portraits and separation/layers. So usually wide open to F8 at the smallest.
With soft focus, depending on the lens, it might be 1/2 to 2/3 stop from wide open and then leave it alone.

[Vaughn]

When perusing a scene, one of the first things I will do will be a quick shadow reading to get an idea of the aperture and shutter speeds I will be able to use, along with the wind conditions. This is important info for me in constructing the image. It tells me what I can do and cannot do with the image and lets me get on with it.

I prefer clipped corners on my GG. When using movements, I can quickly check for coverage at any aperture while under the darkcloth. I can use the clipped corners to view and close the lens down -- visually check for the largest aperture that no longer has any mechanical vignetting happening.

[Mark Sampson]

This got me thinking... have I ever used f/90, or f/4.5? The answer is no. It seems that I always figure my exposure calculations around f/22, and alter from there as necessary.

[Doremus Scudder]

I try to arrive at an "optimum" aperture, balancing depth of field and diffraction, using the method described on the LF homepage here: https://www.largeformatphotography.info/fstop.html ,

The method is based on the circle of confusion in the final print, so takes enlargement into account as well. In a nutshell, one chooses near and far points that one wishes to remain in sharp focus, notes the focus spread between the two, and then chooses the optimum aperture based on that. For smaller apertures, then, the degree of possible enlargement with results still within the resolution parameters becomes more limited. One can use the CoC suggested by the author or choose one's own CoC size and do the calculations.

Note that this method works just as well for photographers that want everything in their images as sharp as possible as well as for those who want to make sure certain areas of their images are out of focus. I tend to fall into the first category.

Most of the subjects I end up working with have generous focus spreads, so I end up with working apertures between f/22 and f/45, with f/32 being the most used by a large margin (this for 4x5). I don't use apertures wider than f/22 or f/16, since those are the sharpest aperture on most of my lenses (my Ektars are really sharp at f/16, but most others are optimized for f/22).

In tricky situations with subject movement, I find I prefer to underexpose rather than use a wider aperture, so I'll use the optimum aperture and a too-fast shutter speed and then try to deal with the lack of shadow detail when printing. Or, I'll just abandon the setup if the image I'd like to make is just not going to work.

Best,

Doremus

[Bernice Loui]

Lost the "default" exposure aperture decades ago...

Easy on in the learning how to view camera journey there was definitely the chronic f22 to f45 syndrome (4x5 Sinar F, modern plasmat or wide angle lenses only) mostly rooted on the Group f64 ideology-belief that every noun in the image MUST be focus or perceived to be in focus. This combined with learning view camera movements went a very long ways to achieving this every noun in the image be in focus or perceived to be in focus. Some years later, began making portraits using Sorta-Focus lenses or lenses with a large full aperture (Heilar, Tessar and etc) with a 8x10 Sinar in studio. This combine with using 35mm & 120 roll film cameras with large full aperture lenses cured the every noun Must be in focus or perceived to be in focused ideology-belief Done-&-Good. The other influence that completely flattened the Group f64 ideology was being influenced by film makers like Stanley Kubrick, Orsen Wells and others that made very effective use of selective focus and Much more.. Then there was the very long list of painters...

Combined with effectively applying composition, lighting/shadow further the creative-expressive image possibilities. This is also where the idea-belief that exposure aperture drives lens choice comes from. If the image goal requires using a large lens exposure aperture (f3.5 to about f16) with a view camera the lens choice is almost always a Tessar, for images requiring an exposure aperture of f16 to f45 lens choice is almost always an APO process lens unless there is a need for extensive camera movements, this is where a Dagor becomes the preferred.

What most might not realize with a view camera, it is an absolutely superb tool for controlling what is In focus and what is Not in focus to what is in perceived focus. To get the very most out of this demands and requires using camera movements properly and to the limits of the camera's movement abilities. Large exposure apertures demands precision/accuracy from the camera as there is a lot less margin and tolerance for stuff like ground glass to film holder area errors and strict alignment of front to rear standards on the centering detent or marks.

There is the current fashion of using large full aperture lenses with digital or roll film cameras that have traveled with those newly venturing in to this view camera stuff, most are using the full lens apertures to "blow out" the background without consideration for composition or lighting.. In these image examples, the out of focus areas becomes an image composition crutch or "fix it all" aid.. IMO, this is the motivation driving the market value of large aperture view camera lenses like Xenotar, Planar and etc... Habit and ways carried over from using large aperture digital or roll film cameras. The interesting side effect from all this has been the re-appearance and market value of the round iris to aid with in to out of focus rendition ala Bokeh.. This is an aspect of lens personality the cinema and serious video folks have had since the beginnings of their gear needs and demands. The still image folks went deep into the all must be in focus end essentially negating the need or interest in the round lens iris (Yes, there are many other aspects of lens personality that influence this too).. or the rise of pentagon shaped lens iris as it does not make much difference if most if not all the image nouns are in focus or perceived focus. Illustration of how influential the Group f64 ideology-beliefs became ingrained into so much of the still image world for a period of time.

One perk discovered after using the Linhof TK23s for a while now, the 6x9 format does Good at much longer than normal lens focal lengths. Much like 35mm/Digital cameras does excellent with really long focal length lenses, 6x9 gains from being a smaller image format when used with telephoto or much longer than normal focal length lenses.. Opposite is true for large sheet film with wide angle lenses.. or sheet film of 4x5 and up benefits greatly when used with wide angle lenses due to image surface area..

Bernice

[drew.saunders]

Things to do while in a boring zoom meeting where people can't tell that you're not looking at the laptop camera:

I looked at the 36 LF images (all 4x5) that I uploaded to Flickr from 2022 (I think that's all I took, maybe one or two bad negatives that I wan't able to scan or chose not to upload), noted their apertures and here's the number of images by aperture, or for the Imagon images, what disk (those are the "H" values at the bottom):

f/3.5: 1
f/4: 1
f/4.5: 3
f/5.6: 4
f/6.7: 2
f/7: 1
f/8: 9
f/10: 2
f/13: 1
f/16: 6
f/45: 1
H5.8 or no disk: 4
H7.7: 1

So, it seems that, lately, I've been an "f/8 and be there" kind of LF photographer! Years ago, I was definitely in the "stop down to at least f/16" camp, but then wondered why should I just default to that? With only one image higher than f/16, it seems I have a definite pattern of "not anywhere near Group f/64."

Now, I compose wide open, and only stop down as needed to get what I want in focus, after fiddling with any tilt that might help out (rarely swing). As you can guess, I have a few lenses that are faster than f/5.6 (165/3.5 Tessar, 180/4.5 Xenar, 210/4.5 Fujinar and 250/4.7 Fujinar, plus the 80/4.5 SSXL that I don't use at f/4.5), and have been exploring shallower depth of field images than what I used to shoot when I started back into LF in 2000 (after learning in college in 1988).

Almost all of my LF images from 2022 were of close to moderate distances, no big landscapes. Lots of cactus and flower photos based on two gardens that I frequented (Stanford's Arizona Garden, and the Elizabeth Gamble Garden in Palo Alto).

Drew