rpps
Senior Member
I too was looking at Photography Life's review on the Z24-120 and shows sharpness was better at f 5.6
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Best aperature to use with the Z24-120 when shooting landscapes
- Thread starter rpps
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In the corners, yes, but not in the centre and midframe. You wouldn't use f/4 for landscapes, so it's a bit off topic, but here it is:
Even at 70mm and 105mm, it's still showing very high sharpness numbers in the centre and midframe wide open:
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rpps
Senior Member
But look at the f5.6 graph it's the sharpess, so far testing the lens I can't see any difference between f5.6 and f8. just depth of field difference.
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Fabian Joya
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Well, for landscapes you typically need corner sharpness. And those do improve as you stop the lens down.
Corner sharpness wide open has never been an issue for me in the field. Either I want to render the whole image sharp(ish) in which case I’m stopped down anyway for the depth of field, or I’ve made a creative choice to focus the image on one thing (maybe a sunflower head in a field of them) in which case the lens is wide open but the focal point is within the thirds and away from the extreme edges/corners so they are deliberately soft and the technical deficiencies of the lens become irrelevant.
To actually worry about the softness of corners wide open, you would have to be completely square on to a completely flat subject, otherwise DOF softens long before lens deficiencies, and the only time that happens is in lens tests in my view.
YMMV.
And in astrophotography.
buildingsights
Leading Member
Yes, absolutely, but an f/4 zoom lens is already a compromise for astro, and the original post doesn’t mention it.
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buildingsights
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Leonard Shepherd
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I moderately disagree.
At f16 central resolution often holds up very well and even though corner resolution is likely to drop this is not necessarily due to diffraction.
Many tests are based on MTF 50 - which means quite low 50% subject contrast.
As most lenses loose some contrast in the corners for optical reasons other than diffraction there may not be a contrast derived resolution loss at 80% subject contrast.
Those who regularly take pictures rather than reading test reports usually quickly learn that highest resolution and low contrast scenes (perhaps a foggy day) are rarely synonymous.
Those in photography long enough to be familiar with film and film MTF may have noticed around a 40% reduction in resolution is common between a high contrast and a low contrast (photographically) scene in film MTF information.
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Leonard Shepherd
In lots of ways good photography is similar to learning to play a piano - it takes practice to develop skill in either activity.
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What do you mean? Read the numbers. f/4 is the sharpest aperture on the graph except from corners. The numbers are down below aswell. Only the corner graph is higher at f/5.6, except from at 105mm.
And I agree, small differences in sharpness is very hard to see on a PC screen. That's why I don't worry much about it anymore.
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Look at the graph I posted. Corners are the same at f/4 as f/8. Just a very subtle improvement at f/5.6, but otherwise really similar at the other apertures. I wouldn't do landscapes at f/4 because of DoF, but I was just replying to your remark about it not being spectacular at f/4, which testing shows might be the sharpest aperture of the lens, atleast on par with f/5.6 overall.
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f/16 is entirely usable in real-world settings, but it is clearly not the sharpest setting for decent lenses. On a Z8, I can see clear impacts of diffraction softening at f/11 with lenses that are sharp (e.g. the 24-120/4 in the center).
Regarding the "2 stops down" rule, this applies to some designs, but not others. High-quality telephoto primes, for example, are often at their sharpest wide open and barely gain from stopping down in the center (or not at all).
Leonard Shepherd
Forum Pro
On close examination, the zone of maximum sharpness is at different distances between the two images.
This makes them far from ideal for comparing sharpness at distance apertures.
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Leonard Shepherd
In lots of ways good photography is similar to learning to play a piano - it takes practice to develop skill in either activity.
Fabian Joya
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First of all, this thread is about which aperture to use when choosing landscapes. All I did was point out that at f/4 corners are not sharp, so you want to stop down a bit from that.
Secondly, DOF at distance is good enough at f/4 for lots of things, at least at the wide end. The interior of dark churches in Europe for example. Here corner sharpness also comes into play. So there are subjects where you want corners to be sharp even wide open.
Fabian Joya
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I don't know about you, but I judge a lens by the pictures I take with it, not by test charts I see on the Internet.
Krummj
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Use whatever you need to get a good picture. I was just reading that the acclaimed photographer, Sebastian Salgado, when he made the switch to digital, he was really pleased that he could shoot at the high F stops he needed by just cranking the iso, getting everying sharp front to back. With film, of course, it was a real challenge.
sirhawkeye64
Forum Pro
For me, usually f/8 to f/11 for maximum DOF.
If I'm shooting something up close (like a flower), probably the same, so I can get enough DOF but still get the nice blurry background.
But this really depends on what you're trying to express in your photo. But most of the time, I'm at f/8 or f/11. If it's a wider shot, I might drop to 5.6 if I need some more light and I'm shooting handheld. But my go-to apertures are generally f/8 to f/11. Rarely f/16 but if I absolutely need to I will. Usually if f/8 or f/11 doesn't provide enough DOF, then I focus stack.
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J
JasonTheBirder
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Remember, sharp-looking photos depend on two things: a reasonable sharp lens and ALSO that the expected level of detail is present. Landscapes typically do not have an enormous amount of very fine detail like bird feathers do, so stopping down past the ideal point is unlikely to cause any loss in detail that could affect the perception of sharpness.
So you are saying that the 24-120 f/4 has worse corners at f/4 than other apertures based on what you have seen in your own pictures? Interesting. I haven't noticed that myself in my pictures. If that's the case, it might be a unit variation thing.
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