Choose Your Aperture

In a recent sippet from The Grid ( about 30inutes in) got me thinking how to choose the Aperture.

Usually I desk check to consider the Aperture I'll use considering my expectation of the scene. I use Photopills app on my phone. You may use this web version. 

As an example I wanted to that light trails of lighted Disc Golf. I wanted to use my 12mm f/2.0 lens. Since there is no way I could focus on the dark what could I do?

I used Photopills DoF and setup my camera type. f/2.0 then estimated the subject distance to the camera of 50 ft.

https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof

That didn't work since the near distance was 49.+ ft. So what if the lighted Disc lands say 10ft from my camera? Using a subject of 20 feet gives me a near Dof  about 9ft and a far of infinity.

The result yes but some of the discs landed out of the Depth of field in front so they are not sharp.

To me it's all about "acceptable" sharpness. 

UPDATE(20241126) - Hyperfocal distance 

Of course YMMV.

Zone Focus

Many articles discussed sharpness. Yes it's important and many may will disagree with me. 

But do you need to track the eye and spend money to purchase new cameras, "gun site" accessories? IMHO No.

Consider zone focus. 

For me with moving subjects I use Photopills DoF pill to decide will the subject be in focus.

When I'm using my 75-300mm glass wide open at f/6.7 and estimated distance of 100ft my DoF is over than 6 feet. That's enough for me to capture many subjects with acceptable sharpness. At f/8.0 DoF is 8 ft. That works for me. YMMV.

For those not M43 shooters need to consider the sensor size. Using a full frame at 600mm it would cut the DoF about half.

 DoF Simulator

PhotoPills DoF Pill

Choose your aperture

My DoF Rant

Am I Getting Better?

How am I getting better?

Using the following criteria;   composition, focus. lighting, exposure, sharpness, would print and show them on your wall?

Go through the photos you took 3 years ago and select 20-24, no more, that you consider are the best. 

 This is your base line. Create a collection or album of that collection.  Perhaps give that album/collection name "Improvement Baseline"

Next go through your photos taken in the last 12 months  and select the 20-24, no more, of your best. 

Now on the last best which, using the same criteria when selecting the  baseline which are better than the first best. If you have 0 you haven't progressed. Now since you progressed use the one's better than you baseline and replace best of the new selection in the baseline. That is the new baseline. 

Replace this process in the next 12 months to note your improvement.