12-60mm Sweet Spot

I am going to be shooting a family pic (12 people in 2 or 3 rows) here shortly for the holidays. It will likely be indoors. I intend to be wide and in tight (although, I'll be watching to avoid barreling) but I'm wondering if anyone has shot in a similar scenario who can shed light on the ideal (sharpest) aperture to use. Assume lighting will be adequate.

I would avoid shooting too wide if possible, especially if people are going to be at the edges of the shot, unless you like stretched heads. It's just what happens at wide angles. So place the camera farther back for a more normal look. The lens is sharp from wide open. I like f 4.5 for a general purpose, sharp at any focal length f-stop.

--
John Krumm
Juneau, AK

Well, you will be in tight, which will lessen your depth of field being as close to the subjects as you plan to be (at least in my limited understanding). So you will want to be at least f5.6 and probably at f8 so that your dof is deep enough to cleanly get the whole group front to back without anybody starting to fuzz out.

my suggestion for safety; f8, focus on the nose tip of a person in front and re-frame to fit the group, you ought to do fine from there.

Experts.....is this sound advice, or should he go higher on the f-stop?!?

Good luck, please post the pic so we can see how it turned out!

Lee
--

I'm technically not a 'qualified professional photographer', but I play one online.....

Thanks for the advice. My reasoning for being close is simply because it seems logical that the most detail will be apparent the closer the camera is to subject (either physically closer or zoomed in). Since it's a group photo I need to maintain wide angle to capture everyone, hence wide and in tight (physically). I will likely not shoot at 12mm though as I have been burned with "barreling" before.

Kliving said:

Thanks for the advice. My reasoning for being close is simply because it seems logical that the most detail will be apparent the closer the camera is to subject (either physically closer or zoomed in). Since it's a group photo I need to maintain wide angle to capture everyone, hence wide and in tight (physically). I will likely not shoot at 12mm though as I have been burned with "barreling" before.

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I would set the camera up as far back as you can and still be able to include everyone in the image with a little space on either side to allow for the small cropping that would be necessary if someone wanted an 8x10 print, and zoom to whatever setting is necessary. I think you'll find the perspective to be much better if you can get back far enough to do a group in the 20-25mm focal length range. There's nothing special about that range compared to the rest...the 12-60 to me seems pretty darn good across the full range. Definitely use something in the f8 or so aperture to keep your depth of field good from front to back of the group.

18-24 mm may be wide enough You avoid distortion and the 12-60mm is razor sharp even wide open.

The better tradeoff is shooting from farther away and zooming in versus shooting close and wide. Shooting wide the folks at the frame's edge will have their faces distorted due to wide angle effects, which have to be considered separately from the lens' somewhat peculiar wave distortion (which shouldn't be very evident in shooting a group of people). Much better to be as far away as physically possible and zoom in.

Shooting stopped down between one and two stops will give the sharpest results while limiting DOF to blur the background a bit. I'm presuming you're using available light, but the same would be true of flash, although you're then challenged by getting a nice ratio of flash and available light.

Cheers,

Rick

Kliving said:

Thanks for the advice. My reasoning for being close is simply because it seems logical that the most detail will be apparent the closer the camera is to subject (either physically closer or zoomed in). Since it's a group photo I need to maintain wide angle to capture everyone, hence wide and in tight (physically). I will likely not shoot at 12mm though as I have been burned with "barreling" before.

Click to expand...

Kliving said:

I am going to be shooting a family pic (12 people in 2 or 3 rows) here shortly for the holidays. It will likely be indoors. I intend to be wide and in tight (although, I'll be watching to avoid barreling) but I'm wondering if anyone has shot in a similar scenario who can shed light on the ideal (sharpest) aperture to use. Assume lighting will be adequate.

Click to expand...

I'm assuming you're not using a flash - don't use the pop-up flash regardless, too harsh. You're going to get the best results with an FL-50 bounced, but it'll be possible without a flash.

Do not, do not, do not use FL's between 12-18mm for portraits. There's too much distortion on the 12-60mm, and you're much better off using longer focal length and stepping back a few steps. Your ideal FL's will be about 25-35mm to minimize distortion and retain excellent sharpness. For small groups, a 10-foot subject distance would be sufficient, larger groups 15+ feet is sufficient at 25mm.

Optimal sharpness can be found here on DPReview's lense review of the 12-60mm, but stopping down 1 stop is plenty to achieve near-optimal sharpness. However, you're not going to want to stop down if you're not using a flash. Luckily the 12-60mm is almost perfectly sharp wide open at 25mm.

At 25mm and 10ft subject distance, you can be wide open and achieve excellent sharpness. Stopping down will not increase sharpness in your case, since that will require using a high ISO, which will add noise, and reduce detail. Even if you were under ideal lighting conditions, stopping down to increase sharpness would not be perceptible on 8x10 prints and smaller.

Indoors with adequate-to-good lighting you're probably looking at ISO800-ISO1600. Aim for a shutter speed of 1/60s as the slowest usable shutter speed. 1/125 if possible. Regardless of how sharp your lense settings are, the image won't be sharp if you have subject motion blur, which is very likely even at 1/60s.

I always consider "low light" shooting to be f/2.8, ISO1600, 1/30s. If you're shooting in a normal house, expect these exposures. Better light/more light, expect a higher shutter speed.

--
Tim
'I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.'
E3/7-14/12-60/150/50-200/25/25/EC-14
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timskis6/

WirenL said:

Well, you will be in tight, which will lessen your depth of field being as close to the subjects as you plan to be (at least in my limited understanding). So you will want to be at least f5.6 and probably at f8 so that your dof is deep enough to cleanly get the whole group front to back without anybody starting to fuzz out.

my suggestion for safety; f8, focus on the nose tip of a person in front and re-frame to fit the group, you ought to do fine from there.

Experts.....is this sound advice, or should he go higher on the f-stop?!?

Click to expand...

I'm not expert either, but:

4/3 has so much DoF than you definetely will NOT need anything at f/8 range. When shooting such a wide target about f/4 (maybe even bigger) should be enough for DoF - either you are far(recommended), which increased DoF, you you shoot wide, which also increases DoF.

And 12-60 is sharpest at about f/4-f/5, after than sharpness starts to disappear because of diffraction.

Using bigger aperture also gives you more light, which will be benefical unless you are in direct sunlight.

(can use faster shutter, lower sensitivity -> lower noise, or have bigger percentage of light coming from natural source if using flash, leading to less "flash effects")

WirenL said:

Experts.....is this sound advice, or should he go higher on the f-stop?!?

Click to expand...

With respect to DOF, no. f/5.6 is already almost the entire field at 25mm and 10-15ft.

With respect to practicality, no. Try setting your camera to f/11 tonight indoors. See what your shutter speed is, even at ISO1600.

--
Tim
'I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.'
E3/7-14/12-60/150/50-200/25/25/EC-14
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timskis6/

Timskis6 said:

Do not, do not, do not use FL's between 12-18mm for portraits. There's too much distortion on the 12-60mm, and you're much better off using longer focal length and stepping back a few steps. Your ideal FL's will be about 25-35mm to minimize distortion and retain excellent sharpness. For small groups, a 10-foot subject distance would be sufficient, larger groups 15+ feet is sufficient at 25mm.

Click to expand...

I always felt that the reason people buy 12-60mm was for the 2mm wide end advantage that it has over the 14-54mm, and it's pretty regretful that using 12mm for a group shot indoors due to space constraints will produce serious distortions.

I'm still torn between choosing the 11-22mm or 12-60mm to replace my 14-54mm, but every day I'm inching more and more towards the 11-22mm knowing that I'll have my 40-150mm to cover the long end, with 50-200mm on its way eventually!

--
Never stop learning.

daniel0ng said:

Timskis6 said:

Do not, do not, do not use FL's between 12-18mm for portraits. There's too much distortion on the 12-60mm, and you're much better off using longer focal length and stepping back a few steps. Your ideal FL's will be about 25-35mm to minimize distortion and retain excellent sharpness. For small groups, a 10-foot subject distance would be sufficient, larger groups 15+ feet is sufficient at 25mm.

Click to expand...

I always felt that the reason people buy 12-60mm was for the 2mm wide end advantage that it has over the 14-54mm, and it's pretty regretful that using 12mm for a group shot indoors due to space constraints will produce serious distortions.

I'm still torn between choosing the 11-22mm or 12-60mm to replace my 14-54mm, but every day I'm inching more and more towards the 11-22mm knowing that I'll have my 40-150mm to cover the long end, with 50-200mm on its way eventually!

Click to expand...

The 12-60mm won't produce any more distortion at 12, 14, or 18mm than will the 11-22mm or 14-54mm. We're not talking about barrel or pincushion distortion - we're talking about perspective distortion. Any lense of an extreme wide angle will exhibit this. In fact, anything wider than a normal lense will exhibit this - it's just that the effect is so slight between 18-25mm that's (IMO) it's negligible at sufficient working distances.

I think you're confusing the different types of distortion and why they are and aren't useful for people photography - or perhaps I should have clarified that further.

--
Tim
'I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.'
E3/7-14/12-60/150/50-200/25/25/EC-14
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timskis6/

This is exactly right. If someone needs the extra coverage they can shoot at 12mm, but should to do so while recognizing the consequences. To push the concept further, one could also shoot a large group in a tiny room using the 7-14, but the folks at the frame edges might not be too happy with the results

All that said, I love the 12-60, both for its high quality and versatility. It's exactly what I was looking for in a standard zoom before Oly rolled it out, then there it was!

Cheers,

Rick

Timskis6 said:

The 12-60mm won't produce any more distortion at 12, 14, or 18mm than will the 11-22mm or 14-54mm. We're not talking about barrel or pincushion distortion - we're talking about perspective distortion. Any lense of an extreme wide angle will exhibit this. In fact, anything wider than a normal lense will exhibit this - it's just that the effect is so slight between 18-25mm that's (IMO) it's negligible at sufficient working distances.

I think you're confusing the different types of distortion and why they are and aren't useful for people photography - or perhaps I should have clarified that further.

--
Tim

Click to expand...

I do not like to use my 12-60 for any portraits due to its optical distortion. Instead, I used 50mm F2.0 or 35-100 F2.0 for portraits for distortion free image quality.

For landscape, 12-60 is fine, however I love images from my 11-22 more than those from 12-60, for the extra 1mm WA, and less distortion on 11-22.

I used to own 14-54 before. I felt the distortion from 14-54 is less than that from 12-60.

It's a big challenge to made a high quality lens with over 3X zoom and starting at 12mm -- too much compromises.

Timskis6 said:

daniel0ng said:

Timskis6 said:

Do not, do not, do not use FL's between 12-18mm for portraits. There's too much distortion on the 12-60mm, and you're much better off using longer focal length and stepping back a few steps. Your ideal FL's will be about 25-35mm to minimize distortion and retain excellent sharpness. For small groups, a 10-foot subject distance would be sufficient, larger groups 15+ feet is sufficient at 25mm.

Click to expand...

I always felt that the reason people buy 12-60mm was for the 2mm wide end advantage that it has over the 14-54mm, and it's pretty regretful that using 12mm for a group shot indoors due to space constraints will produce serious distortions.

I'm still torn between choosing the 11-22mm or 12-60mm to replace my 14-54mm, but every day I'm inching more and more towards the 11-22mm knowing that I'll have my 40-150mm to cover the long end, with 50-200mm on its way eventually!

Click to expand...

The 12-60mm won't produce any more distortion at 12, 14, or 18mm than will the 11-22mm or 14-54mm. We're not talking about barrel or pincushion distortion - we're talking about perspective distortion. Any lense of an extreme wide angle will exhibit this. In fact, anything wider than a normal lense will exhibit this - it's just that the effect is so slight between 18-25mm that's (IMO) it's negligible at sufficient working distances.

I think you're confusing the different types of distortion and why they are and aren't useful for people photography - or perhaps I should have clarified that further.

--
Tim
'I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.'
E3/7-14/12-60/150/50-200/25/25/EC-14
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timskis6/

Click to expand...