Benefits of reducing aperture in landscape photography

Lead: I often hear friends who are beginners in photography say some topics, such as "How to set up a landscape camera?" You will also hear "you can't shoot the scenery with a large aperture, but you should narrow the aperture" for further discussion, but you will find that the answer is not always the same? Some novices even recite some formulas from the internet, but they don't know what the principle behind it is, and it's not easy to understand. Every camera and lens will be a little different.

Benefits of reducing aperture in landscape photography

This paper teaches photography to share an advanced concept of aperture operation. What are the detailed features of the "aperture" when shooting landscapes? The most obvious thing to see when reducing the aperture is that it can effectively eliminate the dark angle problem caused by the loss of light at the full edge of the photo. In this case, each lens will have a different degree. The better the quality of the lens, the lower the "light loss" of the corner, and vice versa.

Eliminate corner loss

No matter what happens to each lens, when you take a picture with the "maximum aperture" of that lens, the corner loss is more obvious. If you want to solve the problem of corner, you can effectively solve it by narrowing the aperture. How small should it be to eliminate it? Every shot is not necessarily. The following photos were tested with Canon EOS 50D fuselage and EF-S 15-85mm F3.5-5.6 ISUM for your reference.

▲ Figure 0 1: corner light. We can see that there is a gradual black shadow from the inside to the four corners of the photo, which makes the blue sky cast some black shadows, which feels a bit like the characteristics of LOMO camera shooting, but the works that pursue accurate picture quality and color are not what we like to see.

▲ Figure 02.

▲ Figure 03.

Comparing Figure 02 and Figure 03, it is good that the aperture is reduced to F5.0, and the aperture is reduced from F3.5 to F5.0 by almost three squares, which can eliminate the problem of edge loss. The quality of this lens is not bad. To eliminate dark corners, it is necessary to reduce the aperture by three squares for reference. If you don't know the quality of the lens in your hand, unlike reducing the aperture from the maximum aperture by three squares first, I believe it will help improve the image quality.

The details are more vivid and clear.

Another advantage of shooting a landscape with a narrow aperture is that the details of the photo can be more beautiful. Many people know this, but the next few questions are: "How much should the aperture be reduced?" "The smaller the shrinkage, the better? Just shrink the aperture properly, and at the same time, it should not be too small, which will cause lens diffraction, so that the image quality will not improve, but become worse.

▲ Similarly, let's take an example to see if narrowing the aperture can improve the image quality. We also use the test photos taken by Canon EOS 50D with EF-S15-85 mm F3.5-5.6 isusm. Note that the position of the green block in the above picture is the area we cut for comparison. Let's compare it with the maximum aperture F3.5 of this lens.

▲ aperture F3.5

▲ aperture F4.0

▲ aperture F4.5

▲ aperture F5.0.

▲ aperture F5.6.

▲ aperture F6.3

▲ Aperture F7. 1.

▲ Aperture F 10.0.

From the above picture, I personally think that the lines of apertures F5.6 and F6.3 are the clearest on the yellow iron roof. When it drops to F7. 1, it feels a little fuzzy. Zooming down to F 10, it is obvious that the image quality has not improved, but has deteriorated, not far from the aperture F3.5

That is to say, for this lens, the best aperture performance is in F5.6-6.3, but in fact, after it is reduced to F5.0, the image quality has been effectively improved. The above is the performance of this lens, and each one is different. From F3.5 to F5.6, the difference is about four squares. If you don't know how the lens behaves in your hand, it's not like getting the lens. Just count three squares from the maximum aperture, although it may not be the best.

abstract

Share the benefits of two aperture reductions through examples, one is to eliminate the problem of falling corners, and the other is to make the details of photos clearer. Every shot has a different performance. Take Canon EF-S15-85 mm F3.5-5.6 ISUM as an example. If the aperture is reduced by about three squares, that is, F5.6, it is the best performance range of this lens, with the best details and almost eliminated dark corners. If you don't know the performance level of your lens, it won't be like directly subtracting three squares from the next photo.

Remember, it doesn't mean beginners can be lazy and not study hard. I hope they like to take photos and pursue a set of practical knowledge, then pick up the camera and set up a tripod. According to the method introduced in this paper, they will test the lens on the hand side to find out the best aperture range of the lens to take pictures.