Beginner Apeture

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photo.man

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I recently rented the 70-200mm 2.8L II lens. Was having a good time at my friends house shooting horses when his father in law started talking to me about settings. I am still getting used to manual mode and am pretty knowledgeable about everything but good advice is always accepted. He told me that an apeture of 5 to 5.6 is beat for image quality. No matter what lens. As he is holding his old cheap Sony camera. And I said it depends on what your shooting and what depth of field you want . And he said we are talking two different things he means image quality. I didn't really want to argue but could someone fill me in on what makes the best image quality. It doesn't really have to do with the apeture right? It's about the lens.
 
He's talking about sharpness, nothing else - max detail at the focused plane (nothing to do with depth of field). A decent quality lens will have max sharpness, in the centre of the image, at around f/5.6 to f/8. An excellent lens might peak at f/4. Sharpness around the edges of the frame are a different story and can vary a lot from that.

Welcome to TP :)
 
photo.man said:
I recently rented the 70-200mm 2.8L II lens. Was having a good time at my friends house shooting horses when his father in law started talking to me about settings. I am still getting used to manual mode and am pretty knowledgeable about everything but good advice is always accepted. He told me that an apeture of 5 to 5.6 is beat for image quality. No matter what lens. As he is holding his old cheap Sony camera. And I said it depends on what your shooting and what depth of field you want . And he said we are talking two different things he means image quality. I didn't really want to argue but could someone fill me in on what makes the best image quality. It doesn't really have to do with the apeture right? It's about the lens.
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The simplest way I can think of answering this is that lenses tend to be best when they are not at their extremes.

If a lens designer was making a fixed focal length lens with a fixed aperture, it would be possible to design all of the elements around this one "setting". Naturally, we want a lens where we can adjust the dof, but this can mean compromises at minimum and maximum apertures.

It's the same for zoom lenses. They tend to be best around the mid points of the zoom.

Areas of lens quality effected could be sharpness, vignetting and chromatic aberration.

I recommend you look up lens reviews with test results and you will see how they vary at different apertures and focal lengths.

Hope this helps :)
 
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photo.man said:
I am still getting used to manual mode and am pretty knowledgeable about everything
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Still don't know why manual mode seems the holy grail of photography/dslr ownership. There's more than enough control in either Av or Tv mode IMHO, let the expensive camera at least do a little bit of the work.
 
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photo.man said:
I recently rented the 70-200mm 2.8L II lens. Was having a good time at my friends house shooting horses when his father in law started talking to me about settings. I am still getting used to manual mode and am pretty knowledgeable about everything but good advice is always accepted. He told me that an apeture of 5 to 5.6 is beat for image quality. No matter what lens. As he is holding his old cheap Sony camera. And I said it depends on what your shooting and what depth of field you want . And he said we are talking two different things he means image quality. I didn't really want to argue but could someone fill me in on what makes the best image quality. It doesn't really have to do with the apeture right? It's about the lens.
Click to expand...

Don't you just love generalisations? :D

Whilst many / most if perhaps not all lenses could be said to be at their best when the aperture is closed down just a bit I suppose to be factually correct it's best to be specific about your particular lens.

If you Google reviews for that lens you'll probably find lots. Here's one...

http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/510-canon_70200_2is28?start=1
 
WelshNoob said:
Still don't know why manual mode seems the holy grail of photography/dslr ownership. There's more than enough control in either Av or Tv mode IMHO, let the expensive camera at least do a little bit of the work.
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Kudos :D Many think it's manly to use manual. Silly thing though.
 
Alastair said:
Don't judge someone by the gear their holding.
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Definitely wasn't judging him. He hasn't had any experience with newer equipment. I'm sure he has great knowledge of his stuff. Just didn't make sense. Some if the other posts on her seem to make sense of what he was trying to tell me. Thanks
 
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