depth of field

[lx1713]

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The medium will also impose what can be resolved because it too has its resolution limits,

 

Newsprint, magazines, glossy or matte prints, CMYK offset printing scale their costs with higher resolving output. The higher the quality the better the details. It just may not be practical for extreme details. Very very few people examine prints with 8x loupes but there definitely ARE people who will. Then the DOF considerations fall apart.

[jaapv]

Actually DoF is described as a range of acceptable sharpness......

 

And the answer to the original question. "When do you normally shoot a summilux lens wide open and get everything in focus ?" 

 

Almost never. That's not the point of "wide open".

 

Gordon

Acceptable unsharpness really

[roofus]

Luminous Landscape recently posted a tour of the Leica factory and a number of videos on Leica Lenses and Cameras.

 

In video 4, Peter Karbe of Leica said: "we design our lenses to be used wide open."

 

I found that statement very interesting, I originally thought that lenses (Leica and others) performed best when partially stopped down, for example for a 50mm, the best f-stop would be 5.6 or 8.

[LD_50]

Luminous Landscape recently posted a tour of the Leica factory and a number of videos on Leica Lenses and Cameras.

 

In video 4, Peter Karbe of Leica said: "we design our lenses to be used wide open."

 

I found that statement very interesting, I originally thought that lenses (Leica and others) performed best when partially stopped down, for example for a 50mm, the best f-stop would be 5.6 or 8.

Designing to use wide open doesn’t mean they don’t perform better stopped down. It likely means they are designing for the best wide open performance they can get with size, weight, and cost considered.

[jaapv]

Not all lenses. Some are diffraction-limited, i.e. best performance wide open. Some Leica APO lenses fall in that category, like the 280/4.0 R and APO-Summicron.

[LD_50]

I thought the APO Summicron was better stopped down than wide open according to the Leica MTF charts.

 

I’ve not shot the lens other than to test a potential purchase so don’t have any images to decide either way.

[pico]

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Not all lenses. Some are diffraction-limited, i.e. best performance wide open. Some Leica APO lenses fall in that category, like the 280/4.0 R and APO-Summicron.

 

Best performance wide open? Does that mean they perform such only against same focal length and the same  aperture? It is impossible to generalize under such constraints.

 

If true, then we have a telephoto lens that is sharpest at an almost useless aperture unless one is doing aerial photography,

Edited March 3, 2018 by pico

[Peter Branch]

Using the Leica SL in "Auto" mode with the 24 - 90mm I was initially surprised that the camera defaulted to the widest aperture and lowest compatible ISO.

 

In practice I've hardly ever been disappointed with the result.  Occasionally a greater depth of field would have been beneficial but that is easy to do and down to the photographer.

 

At all focal length settings I've found that it is perfectly possible to get A3 prints at maximum aperture.  Stopping down, when I've bothered, has never improved the result.

 

As an aside Depth of Focus is an artefact of vision which is surprisingly dependent of the overall sharpness of the image.

 

The sharpest part of the image tends to look sharp even if it is not especially sharp.

 

If nothing is especially sharp then the DoF tends to be greater.  If there is an especially sharp part of the image then the perceived DoF will be smaller. 

[jaapv]

Best performance wide open? Does that mean they perform such only against same focal length and the same  aperture? It is impossible to generalize under such constraints.

 

If true, then we have a telephoto lens that is sharpest at an almost useless aperture unless one is doing aerial photography,

Good to know that I do 90% of my wildlife photography at useless apertures...

[roofus]

I looked at the video again and I would urge all of you who subscribe to the Luminous Landscape to do the same (I have no connection with the site!)

 

Peter Karbe (the head lens guy at Leica . . I can't remember his precise title) said Leica lenses are designed to be used wide open and they perform best wide open. He did not distinguish between M, R, S, SL lenses!

 

The implication was you should only stop them down: in bright light, to increase the depth of field, or to influence bokeh.

[pico]

Good to know that I do 90% of my wildlife photography at useless apertures...

 

Good to know that you are happy. You might be making photos at the lens sweet spot.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Good to know that I do 90% of my wildlife photography at useless apertures...

 

Hello Jaap,,

 

I don't think that your choice of using the maximum aperture of a lens for most of your hand held wildlife photography is necessarily a bad choice, because: I have generally found that when using a camera on a tripod with a relatively motionless subject: I can pretty much choose the aperture that provides the type of image that I am looking for whether my priority is depth of field, quality of image, etc.

 

On the other hand:

 

When I am hand holding, especially with longer lenses, even if I am using a small solid table tripod with soft, non-marking slippers, a large ball head & a cable release against my chest: For the added + 2 stops of stability that it gives me:

 

That in most instances: There is no amount of image correction or depth of field that is greater from using a smaller than maximum aperture: That is able to compensate for the loss in image quality: Because of image shake from the longer exposure time.

 

Even when using the faster shutter speeds where the actual shutter travel rate is at a constant 1/50 of a second & what is varying is the spacing between the 2 shutter curtains which are flying across the image collecting surface in tandem. Always at the same speed.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

Edited March 5, 2018 by Michael Geschlecht

[LD_50]

I looked at the video again and I would urge all of you who subscribe to the Luminous Landscape to do the same (I have no connection with the site!)

 

Peter Karbe (the head lens guy at Leica . . I can't remember his precise title) said Leica lenses are designed to be used wide open and they perform best wide open. He did not distinguish between M, R, S, SL lenses!

 

The implication was you should only stop them down: in bright light, to increase the depth of field, or to influence bokeh.

Their published MTF charts show evidence the lenses perform “better” optically stopped down, as do tests for center resolution, edge resolution, distortion, vignetting, etc.

 

I’ve certainly not shot extensively with every Leica lens but those I do shoot regularly and have shot and researched fit what I described.

[jaapv]

Michael, using a tripod for safari photography is a bad choice. A cable release is even worse with a moving subject. Normally you are in a vehicle with springs and people, which makes a tripod a very unstable piece of gear, not to mention unwieldy and unpractical. You are photographing dynamic subjects. At best you have a bean bag, a chest pod can help.

 

When Lex Hes shot his famous book "Leopards of Londolozi" he had no choice but to use a fixed camera, as Leopards are nocturnal hunters. He welded a piece of pipe to the floor of his Landrover with a ball head on top and trained his tracker and driver to remain absolutely motionless during shoots. Even then, he had to wait for a few minutes for the vehicle to settle down before he could take a photograph. And still, he shot wide open. I know this because I was there at the time.

 

Fortunately, lens makers recognise this and optimize their long teles and zooms for use wide open.

 

Short shutter speeds and wide apertures are the order of the day. Learn to focus or perish.

 

And walking with a tripod capable of holding 5 kg of camera and lens in 40ºC? Good luck with that, you're a better man than I am...

 

If I had to shoot like you suggest, I would get home with very few good shots, if any.

Believe me, 40 years of safari experience have taught me to suck eggs. Have a look at the wildlife forum for results.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Michael, using a tripod for safari photography is a bad choice. A cable release is even worse with a moving subject. Normally you are in a vehicle with springs and people, which makes a tripod a very unstable piece of gear, not to mention unwieldy and unpractical. You are photographing dynamic subjects. At best you have a bean bag, a chest pod can help.

 

When Lex Hes shot his famous book "Leopards of Londolozi" he had no choice but to use a fixed camera, as Leopards are nocturnal hunters. He welded a piece of pipe to the floor of his Landrover with a ball head on top and trained his tracker and driver to remain absolutely motionless during shoots. Even then, he had to wait for a few minutes for the vehicle to settle down before he could take a photograph. And still, he shot wide open. I know this because I was there at the time.

 

Fortunately, lens makers recognise this and optimize their long teles and zooms for use wide open.

 

Short shutter speeds and wide apertures are the order of the day. Learn to focus or perish.

 

And walking with a tripod capable of holding 5 kg of camera and lens in 40ºC? Good luck with that, you're a better man than I am...

 

If I had to shoot like you suggest, I would get home with very few good shots, if any.

Believe me, 40 years of safari experience have taught me to suck eggs. Have a look at the wildlife forum for results.

 

Hello Jaap,

 

Did you read all the way thru my Post to you?

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

Edited March 6, 2018 by Michael Geschlecht

[jaapv]

Oh yes

[wizard]

...

 I originally thought that lenses (Leica and others) performed best when partially stopped down, for example for a 50mm, the best f-stop would be 5.6 or 8.

 

That used to be true (and still is true for older lenses), but with the current Leica lenses you will not see any discernible quality difference in your results between full aperture and stopped down (there may still be some measurable difference though). This is especially true for the very highly corrected APO lenses.

 

Cheers, Andy

Edited March 7, 2018 by wizard

[ramarren]

I looked at the video again and I would urge all of you who subscribe to the Luminous Landscape to do the same (I have no connection with the site!)

 

Peter Karbe (the head lens guy at Leica . . I can't remember his precise title) said Leica lenses are designed to be used wide open and they perform best wide open. He did not distinguish between M, R, S, SL lenses!

 

The implication was you should only stop them down: in bright light, to increase the depth of field, or to influence bokeh.

 

 

No, I'm not going to subscribe to watch a video.

 

And I don't really care what Leica lenses "are designed to do" anyway: I'll figure out what settings to use with them myself based on my own photo making. I now already have most of the lenses I'm ever going to have, that's not going to change by much, so it's easy and cheap to experiment and figure out how to use them in whatever way suits my needs. I chose the lenses I have because I like their qualities. 

 

My first hand experience using my Leica lenses seems to indicate that all my lenses, even my newest Leica SL series lenses, hit their peak performance at 1-2 stops down from wide open, but that they all produce lovely results even wide open—presuming that a very shallow DoF plus Leica's tuning of the wide-open aberrations suits my subject matter appropriately. Most of the time, however, the additional DoF and rendering qualities of 1-2 stops down proves to give me superior results, never mind those frequent situations when I need even more DoF in order to make the photograph I have in mind. 

 

The implication ascribed to this design statement—that "because Leica's lens designs optimize wide open performance one should use Leica lenses wide open"—seems ridiculous. 

Edited March 7, 2018 by ramarren

[wizard]

...

 

The implication ascribed to this design statement—that "because Leica's lens designs optimize wide open performance one should use Leica lenses wide open"—seems ridiculous. 

 

And I guess it wasn't that implication Peter Karbe had in mind when saying what he said. He likely wanted to emphasize that the quality of Leica lenses is such that they may be used at full aperture without hesitation.

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Hallo,

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[ramarren]

And I guess it wasn't that implication Peter Karbe had in mind when saying what he said. He likely wanted to emphasize that the quality of Leica lenses is such that they may be used at full aperture without hesitation.

I doubt that Peter Karbe would make such a ridiculous implication; and I agree that whatever Mr. Karbe had to say, he meant what you said he did, or close very close to that at least (I suspect it was more 'they are able to be used at full aperture with very little image degradation' because that's what I expect a lens designer and engineer to say).... why would one ever hesitate to use a lens wide open if the circumstances of the photograph required it?

 

It's the implication asserted by responses in this thread that I find ridiculous. Just because a lens performs well wide open does not mean that one must use it at wide open settings, or that those settings are best for all uses...!

 

I really don't need to have Leica's chief lens designer tell me that Leica lenses are so good at all. After all, I bought Leica lenses on the basis of my knowledge that they are excellent performers across the full range of apertures, which I learned through long experience with the brand. So what's the point of paying for a video whereby the chief lens designer tells me what I'm already aware of? And why would such a promotional/marketing-oriented piece be locked behind a subscription fee in the first place? I find that ridiculous as well.

 

There's very little that Leica or any other manufacturer has to say that is of adequate substance and information value to be worth paying for. Unless you are looking to buy something they make, and they choose to promote exclusivity of their products by making it cost you money to find out about them ...?? Absurd.

Edited March 7, 2018 by ramarren