• f8 vs. f16

[Dimitric]

Hello -

I'm new into Hasselblad's world....
And I have a question regarding the "f/ number" (eg. f/8), because coming from Leica's world usually f8 is recommended to obtain "best" results (for most of the lenses).
"Best" results for the sharpness of course.
And with the Hasselblad I see a lot of people taking pictures at f/16 and even more.
Is it necessary, is it recommended, is it what you could advice (again I'm looking for the sharpness and details).

If I may compare, with the X1D, it's true that a picture taken at f/8 looks "very" soft.


Thank you, enjoy your day.




- Dimitri

[jerome_m]

f/8 should not look very soft. People may choose f/11 or f/16 because depth of field is more of a problem in MF, but H lenses are usually plenty sharp at f/8.

[Cliff S]

I'm tack sharp wide open. A said above, f16 is for depth of field, not sharpness.

Leics M's are different, at wide apertures, will highlight any mis-calibration.

[BradP]

Peak sharpness is often around f5.6, plus or minus for the particular lens.  But depth of field must be taken into account for what you are trying to resolve in the image.  Aside from looking through the viewfinder or at the display while pressing the depth of field button (on the front), you can download apps to calculate that for you or look up charts on the net to get a handle on that.  At longer f stops you actually can rapidly begin to lose sharpness due to diffraction (light bouncing around in the lens).  So I never shoot above f8 unless I'm willing to trade off sharpness for depth of field.  Most people say f11 or f13, but I've seen the difference at f8 in my charts and I personally start thinking about it there. 

[Dimitric]

Good morning everybody -

Thank you very much for your replies.
Really helpful to me.

Enjoy your day. 



- Dimitri

[asfeir]

Peak sharpness is often around f5.6, plus or minus for the particular lens.  But depth of field must be taken into account for what you are trying to resolve in the image.  Aside from looking through the viewfinder or at the display while pressing the depth of field button (on the front), you can download apps to calculate that for you or look up charts on the net to get a handle on that.  At longer f stops you actually can rapidly begin to lose sharpness due to diffraction (light bouncing around in the lens).  So I never shoot above f8 unless I'm willing to trade off sharpness for depth of field.  Most people say f11 or f13, but I've seen the difference at f8 in my charts and I personally start thinking about it there.

Agree, acutance and resolution are usually max around f 5.6. For f above this value, diffraction increases. Diffraction is not caused by light bouncing between lenses but by light rays changing direction as they pass near the edges of the diaphragm blades, and since the perimeter of the diaphragm divided by the area of the opening is inversely proportional to the diameter of the iris, larger f produces more diffraction. Right, depth of field is smaller the larger the format. People who shoot large format film use f values extending to 32 or even 64.

[BradP]

Thanks for the reminder.  Forced me to reread about diffraction.  Here is a simplified but good explanation of that touching on a lot of these issues. https://photographylife.com/what-is-diffraction-in-photography

[Hassilistic]

This subject seems to come up a lot, we talked about it last July in another thread called optimal aperture: http://www.hasselbladdigitalforum.com/index.php?topic=5061.msg21255#msg21255