is f 3.5 convenient?

[bnnrcn]

This is a sunset photo which was taken with a Canon 1100D.I used the widest aperture because the sun disappeared and I needed light.If I had used the narrowest aperture then my shutter speed would have been longer and the sea would have looked milky.So is f 3.5 convenient for such a situation.Horizon and land
don't seem to me blurred because of f 3.5(may be it is because the photo is taken against light and the land is a silhouette)...what is your opinion?(I know that horizon is not level)


18 mm,f 3.5 ,1/8 sec.,ISO 100

[Andrew1]

It's a bit fuzzy and without any detail it's just an orange and black line across the page. The ISO needed to be raised to address both shortcomings.

[mknittle]

Nice shot Binnur. It looks good to me.

[Geoff F]

Yes, like Andrew, I would have raised the Iso to 400 and had a slightly narrower aperture plus a faster shutter speed.

Most lenses are a little soft at their extremities so I like to get a little closer to the 'middle groups'.

[JR1]

Unfortunately it is spoilt by a sloping horizon

[Wavelength]

The horizon glow is remarkable; please correct the tilt

[bnnrcn]

This is one of the points I really have to be more careful Jeremy...Isn't it possible to correct it with PS,I'm new in photography and I haven't started using PS yet..But when I start I can correct it.
,

Unfortunately it is spoilt by a sloping horizon

[bnnrcn]

Thank you Nandakumar:-)

The horizon glow is remarkable; please correct the tilt

[Wavelength]

You can make some easy corrections using picasa, which you can download from here
Regards

http://www.downloadinfo.co/lp/review...&ts=1389379308

[Geoff F]

Most modern editing software will have some form of straightening options. Sometimes this involves doing a rotation followed by a manual crop.

Before getting software with an auto/semi auto straightening option I would drag a guide line onto the screen then use this as a guide as I manually rotated my image; before the final crop.

At one time, I was always getting horizons which were well off, particularly when photographing from a boat! So I started specifically concentrating on the horizon when shooting.

And now, my hand held shots are usually quite close to level without any extra effort. It all seems to come down to practice.

[Manfred M]

Most lenses are a little soft at their extremities so I like to get a little closer to the 'middle groups'.

Change that to "All lenses".

[bnnrcn]

Thank you ...By the way Nandakumar India is such a colourful place,colourful people,colourful streets...do you ever shoot people and streets? If I lived in such a country I would certainly do that...

You can make some easy corrections using picasa, which you can download from here
Regards

http://www.downloadinfo.co/lp/review...&ts=1389379308

[Geoff F]

Change that to "All lenses".

Well some expensive primes are better than cheap zooms.

But yes, always try to avoid the extremities, and remember that also applies at the other end when shooting narrower than say F16.

[bnnrcn]

So bigger F numbers make your photo softer but increases your DOF,have I got it right? If this is the case we have to decide which one to prefer, according to the scene we want to shoot..

Well some expensive primes are better than cheap zooms.

But yes, always try to avoid the extremities, and remember that also applies at the other end when shooting narrower than say F16.

[Manfred M]

Well some expensive primes are better than cheap zooms.

But yes, always try to avoid the extremities, and remember that also applies at the other end when shooting narrower than say F16.

Agreed (and I have some expensive primes and zooms); but ALL lenses shoot better stopped down a stop or two.

If I compare my f/2.0 105mm DC shot at f/4 to the f/2.8 70-200mm at f.4 the prime is sharper than the expensive pro lens. The main advantage of the high end glass is that I can get great performance at apertures like f/4 and f/5.6. Both blow away the cheap kit lenses; but they cost a lot more and are quite heavy.

The lower end lenses do perform well, but one is shooting at f/8 or f/11, so one has to really sacrifice shallow DoF and has to shoot at higher ISO as a tradeoff.

[Manfred M]

So bigger F numbers make your photo softer but increases your DOF,have I got it right? If this is the case we have to decide which one to prefer, according to the scene we want to shoot..

Binnur - as photographers we are always making tradeoffs, so we have to determine which ones are right for an image.

The "sweet spot"; i.e. maximum resolution of a lens occurs when we stop down a stop or two from full aperture. When we do this, we also have to either increase ISO or decrease shutter speed to compensate for the smaller aperture. Depth of field is shallower at wide apertures, so if we decide that we want a very soft background, we may choose to shoot wide open or perhaps one stop slower, because that compositional choice may be what we want in our image.

If we are taking a picture of a moving object; for instance a bird flying; we may decide to shoot wide open, so that we can shoot at a higher shutter speed to reduce the risk of motion blur. Similarly, we might decide to raise the ISO value and sacrifice a bit of exposure latitude and colour depth for a broader depth of field and no motion blur. In that case we may also decide the the additional image noise is an acceptable tradeoff.

We can have a similar choice when we shoot a landscape and opt to shoot at f/16 or f/22, and will live with a slightly less sharp image due to diffraction, but end up with everything in focus.

Every photographer makes some choices when selecting the camera settings, even when shooting in program mode.

[bnnrcn]

Thank you Manfred,dou you have any idea about ISO tolerance of Canon 1100D? I mean up to which ISO value I can get photos without noice?Or where can I get this info?

Binnur - as photographers we are always making tradeoffs, so we have to determine which ones are right for an image.

The "sweet spot"; i.e. maximum resolution of a lens occurs when we stop down a stop or two from full aperture. When we do this, we also have to either increase ISO or decrease shutter speed to compensate for the smaller aperture. Depth of field is shallower at wide apertures, so if we decide that we want a very soft background, we may choose to shoot wide open or perhaps one stop slower, because that compositional choice may be what we want in our image.

If we are taking a picture of a moving object; for instance a bird flying; we may decide to shoot wide open, so that we can shoot at a higher shutter speed to reduce the risk of motion blur. Similarly, we might decide to raise the ISO value and sacrifice a bit of exposure latitude and colour depth for a broader depth of field and no motion blur. In that case we may also decide the the additional image noise is an acceptable tradeoff.

We can have a similar choice when we shoot a landscape and opt to shoot at f/16 or f/22, and will live with a slightly less sharp image due to diffraction, but end up with everything in focus.

Every photographer makes some choices when selecting the camera settings, even when shooting in program mode.

[Geoff F]

There is a great deal about image noise here http://ronbigelow.com/articles/noise-1/noise-1.htm

And it really does go into detail.

There aren't any firm guidelines, except keep your Iso as low as possible. But I would sooner have some noise, which can usually be reduced during editing, than to shoot with too low a shutter speed or the wrong aperture.

Usually you can go up to Iso 800 without serious problems; but that can depend on the camera, the lens; or the type of scene.

I can often get away with a higher Iso on a well lit scene if I simply want a faster shutter.

But if I am increasing Iso because it is a dark scene I may start to get problems above Iso 400.

There are specific editing programmes to reduce noise. And one simple trick which sometimes works for me if I get excessive noise on a dark background is to go over the problem area with a low opacity Blur Brush.

I normally shoot Raw which can help and gives a chance for some initial reduction before your main edit.

[Manfred M]

Binnur - I think Geoff has given you a pretty good overview and I just want to add a couple more thoughts.

1. There are a lot of vaiables related to noise; but noise from high ISO tends to be more of an issue in imags that have dark colours. Chrominanvr noise (different colours) tend to be the least attractive and a B&W conversion can sometimes make this more acceptable.

2. I've taken noisy shots because having a noisy image was more important to me than having no image.

3. There are post-production techniques that can reduce noise, but they blur the image. Sometimes (especially if the main issue is noise in the sky (or other dark areas)) once can "cheat" in post by subsituting a from another image. Dark frame subtraction is an in-camera technique that can be used to reduce noise, if your camera has that functionality. It works by having the camera (automatically) take a second image (same duration as the initial shot) with no light hitting the sensor. This image will should be black, and any non-black areas (noise) can be subtracted. The downside of this techinique is that on long exposures, this process can tie up your camera for quite some time.

Once you get to know your camera, you will be able to make some good judgement calls. For instance, I will stay below ISO 800 on the D90, but have no issues shooting the D800 at ISO 3200 for most shots.

[batmura]

Binnur, there's nothing wrong with shooting at f/3.5 as your i age does not really necessitate front- to-back sharpness. Apart fromthe skewed horizon, I believe the main problem is your foreground. I love silhouettes as much as the next guy, but silhouettes, to me, are all about shape. In your image, the foreground is a mass of black; there is nothing that tells the viewer what it is. The colour in the sky and reflection in the sea look nice, but the foreground, which is supposedly also the main 'subject' of the image, is not well defined. Finally, if you are shooting at 1/8 of a second, you must be on a tripod using the timer or a remote release.