That's what I get for venturing out of my comfort zone

[dmcantrell]

I had a client shoot this weekend. Usually, I tend to do client shoots at f/8 regardless of the situation. This was a piece of advice that Don Barnes gave me once when I was a tag-along on a wedding with him.

Anyway, by staying at f/8 and low ISO I can usually count on the shutter speed in the 1/80 - 1/400 range regardless of the lighting conditions (with speedlights). I do bring my speedlights for off-camera lighting, esp in bright sun to open up the shadows.

Well, this weekend I decided to "venture out" of this recipe and try to shoot at f/4 to get some nice, blurred backgrounds. Two things happened, neither of which were good. First, the f/4 made my shutter speeds drop into the 1/1600 range (for an outdoor shoot). This is fine, except I forgot about the flash sync speed of 1/320. Since I was in M mode, the flash and the camera happily fired every frame, only the light itself wasn't apparent in the photos. Since the sun was bright, it was very difficult to pick up on this in the lcd screen when I was doing the initial setup inspections. The second thing that happened was the focal plane became razor thin. Many of my shots are just slightly out of focus and ended up in the scrap heap. I use the AF-ON thumb button "focus and recompose" method which has its own set of issues. The f/8 advice seems to protect me from both of these pitfalls automatically.

Luckily, I was able to find some keepers in the collection and the client seems to be happy with them. My own critical eye seems to be much more critical than the client, and they will probably never know that the shadows were a bit darker than I had intended.

Anyway, this was a good learning experience for me and made me remember how touchy all of these details are and how things can go so wrong so fast.

Thanks for reading!

[ronocnikral]

i was wondering about the 1/400s for sync speed with the lights. I usually never go above 1/200s.

Out of curiosity, What is the reasoning for staying around f/8 on the aperture?

I've found we are much harsher on ourselves than most clients. This is for many reasons. Unfortantely, there are clients who are much harsher....

Glad it worked out!

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by ronocnikral

Out of curiosity, What is the reasoning for staying around f/8 on the aperture?

If I remember correctly, it had to do with the focal plane at f/8 being large enough to forgive slight focus errors, whether due to autofocus variability or just plain user error. It was just a piece of advice that he mentioned to me in passing and it just stuck in my head. I've been using that technique for some time and it has proved to be very useful for me. It helps me take one variable out of the equation and lets me focus (ha!) on the other aspects.

[Buddha]

Why not try your experiments on non-paying subjects first to see what happens? That might be fun.

[ronocnikral]

the focal plane can be affected by more than just aperture. it does seem like a good rule of thumb for mid length lenses though.

[dmcantrell]

Good point Joe, but at the time I didn't think of this as an "experiment". In hindsight, I should have gone with my tried-and-true techniques and saved the new stuff for another time.

[darktiger]

You never look at your pictures every once in a while and check how your images are coming out?

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by darktiger

You never look at your pictures every once in a while and check how your images are coming out?

Yes, of course. As I mentioned in the original post the sun was very bright and I had a hard time seeing the subtle details in the 3" lcd outdoors. On my D300, subtle details like critical focus and shadow depth are difficult to discern, especially in very bright sunlight. I can shield the lcd screen with my hand, but then that makes a very dark shadow on the screen itself.

[brewercm]

It also seems like most lenses hit there sweet spot around the f8 range. Not exclusively but a good rule of thumb it appears from looking at all the different lens reviews. I suppose you can always blur the background in post if you want it more than it already is.

[KenJulio]

If shooting outside, check out the hoodman loupe.

[KenJulio]

Originally Posted by darktiger

You never look at your pictures every once in a while and check how your images are coming out?

This was beat into me early on to chimp and chimp, and chimp to make sure you get the correct exposure.

[auddii]

I've also seen a couple of people looking to shoot tethered to tablets, although I don't know if the glare would be just as bad. At least it would be bigger glare

Thanks for sharing though. While it frustrated you, at least everyone can learn a little from this. :)

[darktiger]

Originally Posted by dmcantrell

Yes, of course. As I mentioned in the original post the sun was very bright and I had a hard time seeing the subtle details in the 3" lcd outdoors. On my D300, subtle details like critical focus and shadow depth are difficult to discern, especially in very bright sunlight. I can shield the lcd screen with my hand, but then that makes a very dark shadow on the screen itself.

Not sure, I guess I chimp a lot or something. If the sun was too bright, cant you just turn around and use your body to shade, or turn up/down the brightness of your screen. I guess I have always found a way to chimp even on the brightest days...

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by darktiger

Not sure, I guess I chimp a lot or something. If the sun was too bright, cant you just turn around and use your body to shade, or turn up/down the brightness of your screen. I guess I have always found a way to chimp even on the brightest days...

I think what might be missing from my description is the kind of details that I typically use the LCD screen to verify. On my D300 anyway, I can easily check things like exposure, framing, background clutter, perspective, and gross focus quality. It's the finer, subtle aspects that are difficult to validate on my tiny LCD screen. For example, I can easily check for gross focus errors out in the field on my D300 LCD screen. However, it's not until I get home and get the photos blown up 100% that I catch the critical focus differences. I'm not talking about blurry, out-of-focus photos. I'm talking about the photos where the focal point wasn't on the eye, or where the focus was slightly in front of the face causing an ever-so-slight softening of the lips. I have a hard time picking out these subtle details on my D300's LCD screen. For me, the same holds true for the shadow detail in this case. What I was going for with the speedlights was a slight brightening of the shadows, just a "touch". I could not make out these details out in the field on the LCD screen, but it could just be me and my D300.

[Sonny]

David,

Thank you for taking the time to share an 'uh-oh' moment and your reasons behind it.