Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
We see some especially beautiful, well-composed and exposed images presented here, mostly from digital cameras. I often wonder how large a picture from a camera with a 5 micron sensel size in 35 mm full frame format gets printed when the exposure was at f16.
Yes the DOF increases but the value of having 24 MP might be decreased to about half or more. Perhaps in doing architecture, it doesn't matter where there's little fine granular detail to be conserved and shown. Of course a 6MP digicam could be used for a giant billboard viewed 100 meters across a freeway. But are we really organized to plan our shots with presentation output in mind? I'm seeing more than a few highly competent colleagues using their Hassleblads or DSLRs as if the f stops didn't cost anything in quality as the DOF increases.
So what limits do you give yourself for the pictures you shoot? I generally try to keep below f8.0 for a DSLR and generally less than 5.6 so I can print as large as possible if I so choose. Of course we're still limited, but how often is DOF so much more important than quality?
Incidentally, we accepted the notion of stitching adjacent overlapping images to gain more pixel "real estate" for a panoramic view. But why not deal with depth too? Why don't we do more focus stacking, especially in architecture?
Asher
Yes the DOF increases but the value of having 24 MP might be decreased to about half or more. Perhaps in doing architecture, it doesn't matter where there's little fine granular detail to be conserved and shown. Of course a 6MP digicam could be used for a giant billboard viewed 100 meters across a freeway. But are we really organized to plan our shots with presentation output in mind? I'm seeing more than a few highly competent colleagues using their Hassleblads or DSLRs as if the f stops didn't cost anything in quality as the DOF increases.
So what limits do you give yourself for the pictures you shoot? I generally try to keep below f8.0 for a DSLR and generally less than 5.6 so I can print as large as possible if I so choose. Of course we're still limited, but how often is DOF so much more important than quality?
Incidentally, we accepted the notion of stitching adjacent overlapping images to gain more pixel "real estate" for a panoramic view. But why not deal with depth too? Why don't we do more focus stacking, especially in architecture?
Asher