What is your favorite f-stop in 35mm photography?

What is your favorite f-stop in 35mm photography?

  • Total voters
    410
foolproof said:
im with ferdinand on this one. am i the only one that thinks this is a little bit of a stupid question ?
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I had assumed that it was a joke question satirizing our collective obsession with polls and technical minutiae.

For that matter, the title asks "What is your favorite f-stop", but the actual poll question is, "What is your favorite aperture?" If you think about the implications of this, it could be not only a joke question, but a dirty joke question...
 
foolproof said:
im with ferdinand on this one. am i the only one that thinks this is a little bit of a stupid question ?
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Well, people are answering with detailed and well-thought out answers, with definite preferences for the results at very specific apertures. So seems like a valid question after all ( or at least valid answers :) )

I'm not quite so detailed about aperture choice: I like it wide-open. So I voted 1.4 which applies to many of my lenses. Else it's 2.

I was surprised not to see 1.0 on the list and only one comment about that though.

j
 
JonasYip said:
Well, people are answering with detailed and well-thought out answers
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Yep. Any answer is an insight into their f/stop preference. I find I gravitate towards f/1.4 -- Those who find the question neurologically-challenged, I think you can infer that they don't have a preference? My twopence.
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
Those who find the question neurologically-challenged, I think you can infer that they don't have a preference? My twopence.
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nice. i see someone didnt get want they wanted off santa
 
Good gawd (y'all), this is a hard one. I selected 2.8. Just below max, so you get a bit of depth, but open enough to allow good available light shots.
 
is it just me, or has the focus of this website shifted completely towards gear/tech stuff (or antitech in many cases), or is photography still of interest around here? i don't mean to be rude, but when i started lurking around this place, i had the feeling that this was a place of photographers (on whatever level they might be), but it sure doesn't feel that way today..

there's another active thread just below, it's titled "when did it all go wrong". needless to say it's about gear, but when i read the title i thought of rff.

again, it's not my intention to be rude, but i do find it a rather sad turn.
 
thorirv said:
is it just me, or has the focus of this website shifted completely towards gear/tech stuff (or antitech in many cases), or is photography still of interest around here? i don't mean to be rude, but when i started lurking around this place, i had the feeling that this was a place of photographers (on whatever level they might be), but it sure doesn't feel that way today.
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I don't mean to be rude, but this is something of a recurring complaint -- it's more or less RFF's version of "Christmas has become too commercial."

Discussion emphasis in the forums does seem to oscillate between the gear-oriented and the photography-oriented (I suspect time of year has something to do with it) although I think you'll find that if you visit the gallery section regularly, that's where you'll find both a lot of worthwhile images and some rather thoughtful commentary about them.

While I've enjoyed many of the photography-related discussions in which I've participated, it's necessary to keep in mind that:

1) This is Rangefinder Forum, which is a gear-based distinction right off the bat. Many people, including myself, feel that there really is such a thing as a "rangefinder aesthetic" and that it's interesting to discuss this phenomenon and its implications, but many others don't.

2) Like it or not, a forum is primarily a word medium, a fact which imposes limitations on the discussion of visual media. The ability to attach or link images is useful in providing a reference to works with which we're all familiar, but doesn't allow enough detail for a nuanced discussion of works with which we're not.

That means that starting a discussion along the lines of "Klima's new gallery show is just sublime, isn't it?" or "Considering her age and the volume of work she produced, would Francesca Woodman have such a big reputation if it weren't for her tragic backstory?" isn't likely to go far, simply because hardly anybody else will have much of an idea of what you're talking about.

I used to participate in a couple of online dance forums, but dropped out for that very reason: the group's geographic distribution was so wide that there was no point in talking about Concert X or Choreographer Y since nobody else was likely to be familiar with the topic -- so the whole thing seemed to be merely an intellectual badminton match consisting of batting generalizations and prejudices about well-known figures back and forth.
 
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foolproof said:
nice. i see someone didnt get want they wanted off santa
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I'm sorry if I offended you when I commented after you said that the question was stupid. In Holiday Cheer, I apologize. :eek:
 
I like to keep reasonably near to the optimum level of the lens while keeping things fairly sharp at the moment. The former usually being f8, consequently I think I use f11 more than anything else. Though I keep my mind open to anything depending on the situation. f11 is my preset number.
 
thorirv said:
is it just me, or has the focus of this website shifted completely towards gear/tech stuff (or antitech in many cases), or is photography still of interest around here? i don't mean to be rude, but when i started lurking around this place, i had the feeling that this was a place of photographers (on whatever level they might be), but it sure doesn't feel that way today..

there's another active thread just below, it's titled "when did it all go wrong". needless to say it's about gear, but when i read the title i thought of rff.

again, it's not my intention to be rude, but i do find it a rather sad turn.
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it is a fairly common complaint. the site is afterall based on hardware. if you look around you'll see that there is some effort here to balance things out. the best way to help maintain that balance (or tip one way or the other) is to offer up some alternative. while this is a hardware thread/poll (much less so than others), I think at heart it is still a discussion about photography.

:)
 
Yeah Ray, that was the point to get off the more common topics like "What's the best lens?" or "What's the best camera body?" While lens design can have a profound effect on many image qualities, and camera design effects the experience of capturing the image for the photographer, the f-stop choice is pretty important to the look of a photo. After lens selection, film type, and focus distance, the aperture used to take a photo usually has the next most profound effect on the resulting image (though perhaps not for special cases like sport photography where shutter speed is more important).

In rangefinders, unlike SLRs, the photographer gets no direct preview of depth of field, so the RF operator has to have a bit of imagination to preview the result. In that respect it resembles the umpredictability of the art of firing pottery. My boyfriend makes pots, and while he is a master at decorating pottery, he never knows exactly what the final result will be until the kiln cools and the ceramics come out. Sometimes there is more oxidation and colors ar brighter and lighter, sometimes there is more chemical reduction in the firing, and the glazes are darker and earthier in tone. So it is with depth of field and out of focus effects in photography. Isn't it wonderful when everything works and you get a magical image at the end?

In 35mm photography, I tend to shy away from f/11 and f/8 these days as those apertures start to reduce resolution a bit due to diffraction, and I stopped using f/16 for the same reason, except in occasional macro photos. I'm surprised anyone picked f/16, which may produce a lot of depth of field, but won't allow good enlargement past 4X. F/5.6 is my default setting during the day. And at night I open up all the way, depending on what lens I have, unless I'm doing tripod work.

Anyway, I was just curious as to how other people were thinking about these things, and I'm glad some people didn't think it was a silly joke. It was not meant to be.

Be happy and take good photos, Steve Keirstead.
 
Favorite? 5.6 to 8

What I actually shoot 95% of the time, because I usually shoot indoors - as open as the lens will go. I am beginning to experiment with faster film - just shot a roll of Ilford 3200 over the weekend, and pushing 400 film more often, so perhaps I'll be sliding up to 2.8 to 5.6 more, we'll see...
 
f8 for all lenses except the 15mm Heliar; the Bessa L with that lens gets 400 speed film so I can use f16 or f22 and shoot with confidence for lots of depth of field.
 
I won't vote for a favourite, because I don't think I really know.

However, I do know that with a 50mm lens at close focus distances, I use f/4 & f/5.6 a lot, to restrain - without completely losing - the d.o.f.
 
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