How often do you shoot below f2.0?

[Charlie Lemay]

Always. I nearly always shoot the same subjuct at three or for successive f-stops, starting with the widest. Rating FujinAcros 100 at ISO 6 and cutting development to 4 1/2 minutes gives me incredible scale and makes using wide aoertures in bright sun easy. My EV is f1.5 @ 1/1000. With a rangefinder, everything appears to be in focus in the finder, and you have to imagine what will be out of focus and how that will look. I love that out of focus stuff with extended tonal range.

 

[tyrone.s]

Not when taking landscapes, usually. But generally if I've got faster, I'll use faster.

 

[B-9]

Always shoot wide open if I can.

Sometimes I will stop down when I breach the M8's 1/8000 max speed. I almost always go straight to Sunny16 at point..

Ive been using a Canon 50-1.2 for a few weeks now and ive shot 98% at 1.2

This lens was built for it.. Stopped down.. Its just another 50.

 

[willie_901]

I don't like to go below f/2.8 for what I shoot.

This.

I rarely need to go below 2.8. But I'm using raw files with a psuedo-ISO invariant camera. I used wider apertures with older sensor technologies. A two stop brightness push in post production produces nice images. I am not interested in ultra-thin DOF.

Sometime this year a Fuijinon 35/2 will become available. I will replace the 35/1.4 as soon as possible. I don't need the wider aperture and I prefer the smaller size. The AF motor technology should be improved as well.

 

[Godfrey]

Okay, some real data:

I have about 110,000 exposures in my main, working, LR catalog. About 98,000 of them are from digital cameras which record actual working aperture (the rest are film scans and camera-lens combinations that don't provide real data). In that 98,000, exposures made at lens openings from f/1.0 to f/2 amount to about 8200 exposures, so about 8.3% of the time. If I broaden the range to f/2.8, the percentage jumps up to about 20%, and if I broaden the range to include f/4, the percentage approaches 45%.

G

 

[mdarnton]

I used to be enchanted by sharpness, and would shoot at f/5.6 as much as possible. Then going through my pictures over the years, I see many of my most favorite are shot close to wide open, by necessity. I think the type of isolation that gives works with the way I work, unless there's some specific story-telling value in what's going on in back. Also, now that I've been hanging around large format sites, I am starting to understand what I've been seeing in those large-opening shots is not lack of sharpness, but aberration-induced diffusion, such as one got with old portrait lenses, and I appreciate it more as a different look, not a failure.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Whenever shutter speeds get too long at smaller apertures...

I'd say that I quite rarely shoot at anything between wide open (when there's not enough light) and maybe f/4 (when there's plenty of light).

That's why I sold my 35 Summicron and kept my 35 Summilux. Both are good at f/5.6, and the Summilux is not too far behind at f/4. The Summicron is better at f/2 and f/2.8. But at f/1.4 the Summilux wins hands down.

Cheers,

R

 

[daveleo]

Thanks for the many replies.
I have a mixed bag of thoughts on shooting below f2.0 and I am glad to see there is a wide range of opinions and shooting styles here. Was beginning to think I am alone in shooting f4.0-f8.0 virtually all the time.
* I also am waiting for the Fuji 35/2.0, and will probably trade off my 35/1.4 for it. Size, I have come to realize, is VERY important to me (assuming equal image characteristics) *

 

[Nathan King]

Almost never for effect, though I have been forced to shoot at f/1.4 quite a bit lately while working on a photo essay on the night life in my town with film. There's only so much film will push before the results become absurd to print in the darkroom. Photography from sunrise to sunset is typically done between f/5.6 and f/11.0.

 

[robert blu]

I only have two lenses going so open, one is a 50mm 1,4 Nikon AIS and the other is the CV Heliar 35 F 1,7. Both lenses aren't very much used lately and the lenses I use start from F2!

Tha 50-1,4 AIS I use let say 10% of times full open for portrait or experiments like these below, both F1,4

 

[rwintle]

I prefer to stay at f/2.8 or smaller on Nikon DX (crop sensor). My fastest lenses are f/1.8's and I almost never use them, either on Nikon DX or 35mm film, that wide open. I do have one rangefinder with an f/1.7 which I've only shot that wide open to see what it looked like. My fastest MF lenses are f/4.5.

 

[DNG]

It depends on what I want, or what I am photographing....
I don't buy lenses to shoot wide open exclusively...
I buy lenses to use the whole spectrum of f/stops... from f/1.4 to f/22....

I find that I set f/stops between f/5.6-f/16 90% of the time.
I do buy faster lenses (f/2 or f/1.4), but, for the occasional extended family visits where I don't use flash.

 

[rhl-oregon]

These days--if the lens can do the work--as much as possible, to isolate the subject from foreground and background. The 50 1.5 C-Sonnar, XF 35 1.4, SLR Magic 23 1.7, Zuiko 50 1.4. Part of it, too, is about focus discipline with manual lenses adapted to digital bodies.

On film bodies, it's a different matter. Not so much the CV 40 at f1.4 on the CL, or the Olympus 40 at f1.4 on the Pen FT. I've wasted enough film on goofy oof (out-of-focus) that way. And I'm more likely to use the ZM 50/2 than the 50/1.5 on the M5 because it's smaller, can get a little closer, and is more idiot-proof or goofy-oof-proof.

Low light and night change everything again, though. Got to have the widest possible iris!

 

[brainwood]

I like to shoot at wide apertures for some of the pictures I take. I even fit ND filters in strong light so I can open up the lens if the shot warrents it but as a percentage its probably around 75 small aperture and 25 wide open.

 

[rbsinto]

I shoot wide open when I feel it is necessary to do so, but I don't have many lenses that are that fast anyway:
Nikkor 35 1.4 AIS, and a Nikkor 50 1.4 AI (which I use about once every 20 years), and Nikon 35 1.8 and Nikon 50 1.4 (both rangefinder lenses and the 50 has been used once since I got it).

 

[semrich]

I like low light and night shots, and have lenses below 2.8 that I frequently use with HP5 @ 400 pushing the limits with steady hands and shutter release at speeds to 1/15th, most other times I like to shoot at f4. Cameras and lenses 2.8 and above I often use with Delta 3200 for those same low light and night shots.

 

[RedLion]

For informal environmental portraiture, I always shoot wide open (23mm F1.4 & Fuji XT-1)

 

[Mackinaw]

Depends on the lens I guess. With my Canon LTM 50/1.2, almost all of the pics I take are between F1.2 and F2.0 because I like the “look” I get at those apertures. With my LTM Nikkor 50/2.0 or Summicron 50/2.0, most pics are shot at about F4.0 - F5.6.

All of these three lenses are a bit soft wide-open, but the Canon has character when shot at a large aperture, the other two don’t. And don’t ask me why.

Jim B.

 

[Wulfthari]

Everytime I need to do a portrait or I need to isolate a detail, I would say from 5 to 10% of the times I shoot.

 

[raid]

I had my favorite tele lens (with aperture stuck to 1.4) for several years all the time at 1.4 until recently DAG fixed it. With 50mm lenses, I often use the range 2.8-5.6, but when needed, I set the lens to its max aperture.
With portraits, I mostly use an aperture 1.2~2.8 about 70% of the time. Maybe, 30% at 1.2-1.4.