30 Oct 2009, Posted by Kay in t Veen in Techniques, Tips & Tricks, 4 Comments

Apertures around the fields

I received a lot of questions concerning apertures, after publishing the 101 guide a lot of people asked “ok, apertures are clear to be but in what situation should i use what aperture”. First of all its depending from the amount of light available. Second the subject your shooting and last the effect you want to create or the type of photo you are creating.

Most sports photographers use lenses around f/2.8. This will give you a lot of light, but shallow depth of field, meaning that this is great for 1 person, and give you a lot cleaner background. But for example a hockey player will give you a sharp face and a big part of the body in focus. but the stick or opponent will be out of focus, this can give a great effect and focus the attention on the one player instead of the whole scene. But the difficult thing about this is, when you have a fast moving subject our AF system just has to get in a very small bit out of focus and your short is immediately useless.

So when use apertures around f/2.8 or f/2. For 1 person, or when you want the focus only on 1 person. or of course when there is less light available. For a group shot, you need apertures around f/8 or maybe even higher to get everything in focus. Be aware that the background will also be in focus, so a good clean background is important in this situation.

Personally i shoot a lot of f/4, but love the effect of f/2.8. Knowing your camera in and out will help you to switch between apertures without watching, this give you both great photos in f/4 (which is a lot easier than f/2.8) but also makes great portraits or solo action in f/2.8.

When shooting indoor the most important part is the available light, you are almost never allowed to shoot with flash, and indoor lightning is never as good as sun or just outside light. You probably want to shoot f/2.8 here or maybe even f/2. Be aware of what you shoot, since your a limited to these apertures and cannot shoot complete groups of fast moving objects. try to focus on 1 target and work your creativity on this.

Good luck shooting!!

Shot at a f/2.8 aperture

Shot at f/4 background is not really clean