STOP These APERTURE MISTAKES! (ƒ/11-ƒ/16) 

Anyone else share some of these same mistakes??

Watching all these "lessons" makes me realize how much I need to improve. A lot. It's very painful spending time going to a location and realizing you don't have all the tools needed to get a good picture. Tools being in your head.

No matter how long I’ve been doing this, it’s good to be reminded of these basics.

I like your pronunciation coz I'm from Ukraine and it's hard to understand what people say. And I gotta say your pronunciation is perfect, I wish my English teachers could speak like you

Aperture is everything. I remember starting out shooting everything wide-open and being like... "why is nothing in focus?" Starting off just shooting everything at f/11 isn't the worst idea in the world-- but I always had a need to know "why?" You have few tools in your arsenal to make a good photo. A lot of it isn't up to you if the light or subject just isn't there. Composition and aperture are so crucial that it is easy to just "abide by the rules" but if you don't understand why the "rules" exist and what they really mean, you won't know when or how you need to bend or break them to get what you're looking for. On a new (to me) lens or camera, I'll definitely shoot at a slightly elevated aperture to give me a little extra tolerance for nailing focus, and I feel like as you get better with the machine in your hand, you can open that lens up and really start to get creative with it and nail focus on your subject like it's a bodily function. Knowing how to use hyperfocal distance is a very powerful tool, but it's a hard concept to explain, and harder to understand just by hearing someone explain it (at least for me it was). Grabbing a manual prime lens and looking at the focus scale totally crystallized the concept in my brain. I point that infinity mark at f/16 and suddenly "woah! I get it now!"

One thing that I can recommend is aperture bracketing, especially when photographing woodlands. Not being sure what you want in field is normal, but make sure you cover the options you want for post.

In summary, understand what depth of field means.

Shooting with manual focus and focus peaking have really helped to visualize how much is in focus at which aperture.

Love it! I went out with some fellow togs and we all have different styles of shooting. I love depth in my photos so I use lower aperture whilst my other fellow togs are using higher aperture. There's no right or wrong in photography it's just the way we visualise images in our brain :)

Good review of aperture. People should also be aware of the affect of focal length on depth of field. At 18mm or lower it is hard to get anything out of focus the depth of field is so large.

I love that Sports Walkman on your desk! I have a couple cassette Walkman personal stereos myself.

So with a lot of lenses, depending upon focal length, you get diminishing returns and will be forced to focus stack if you're in a "I won't compromise" mindset. This begs the question: Do we need every image to be in perfect focus? Do images sell more or less if they are or are not in perfect focus? Does the entire frame have to be in perfect focus? This goes right into the same topic about how contrast works - Not every image do we need to see every detail within the shadows. In fact, if you examine some of the most well sold famous classic art work out there, rarely is everything in focus as well as every shadow detail perfectly detailed. Part of what I would argue, just like cropping, is what we choose to leave OUT of the image, and that's not just limited to cropping, but should include how much selective contrast one uses, and of course what depth of field one chooses. I'm not sure going down to the perfectionist end of the spectrum, while we all appreciate being the "best" of ourselves, which I'm totally on board with, but not all images need the scientific approach when it comes to perfection. In looking at some of the "art" that sells, one can often laugh at some of what we would characterize as "mistakes" from a technical standpoint, but stepping out of the technical part, which is easier to teach and make videos about, is the artistic part: How does an image make people feel? Yes, we're now in a Feelings based society, more now than ever. So with that in mind, most people make choices based upon not the rational or scientific but on how they "feel." I'd argue this is why most photography becomes repetitive and while again, the drive towards making images "perfect" is something that's measurable and tangible, sometimes, especially as you age, you start to "see" differently. I do agree on the majority of the issues presented here, except I would have emphasized more on "copy variation" which is YUGE/BIGLY/TREMENDOUS on mass produced plastic lenses/3rd party lenses. The other issue I would have brought up would be about per-visualizing at home, before you even leave the house: Paint in your mind, what kind of image do you want? This is the best and most fun part - the creative thinking part. This is what we need more of. Then all you do is go out and find that image. I'd also love to hear who inspires you? Art Wolfe is a great artist whom brought inspiration from classic painters. It's in that approach you'll notice many of his images are far from this engineering/technical/scientific and not so fun perfectionist approach, which feels more like a job... While I think both are good, I think viewers should be reminded that imperfections, just like in personality, bring uniqueness to photography. Personally what I've seen from most photographers is that they get instilled in them this perfectionist/engineering approach, and the images they make, while maybe technically perfect, begin to look very common and/or you see the same compositions repeated; I see this in where I live as seemingly everyone flocks to the same viewpoints for that "checklist" shot. Some of the most fun/inspirational images most have taken were unique images they found, not ones they saw and went to replicate. I do understand the benefit in knowing "how" to make technically great images, but I think we need to keep this hobby and "art" as fun as well. Like many trends in art, things tend to go in cycles... Just a different perspective and reminder to have FUN with it!!! I'd encourage anyone that wants a "breath of fresh air" to look at some of Art Wolfe's teachings and take a painting or drawing course. It makes a big difference and will make you an even better photographer and "artist".

My wife recently bought a relatively nice Fuji camera. I've been trying to teach her the basics of the exposure triangle, but she continues to just wind the aperture dial to get the right exposure. Her camera is pretty good for aperture priority jpegs, in fact, I'd say because of its size and weight, it's better than my Z6 for just walking around, so I'll continue to teach her.

I started using higher setting a few months ago… love the depth and clarity in my shots. Listening to Mark and viewing his shots pushed me to try… and so I did.

Nicely explained. Request u to continue further withe type of shouldn't say small but we Photographers ignore most of the time.this is the fact we ignore small things keeping sometimes exposer sharpness etc.in our mind. Thanks.

In some scenarios, maybe it would be useful to merge two images, each one focused on a different critical point of the scene. Thank you for this video !

Fantastic demonstration with the scenes and there justification.💐👍

Hands down this video puts aperture into perspective. When I first started I focused so much on my composition but then I became dissatisfied with what was or wasn't in focus. My screen doesn't have the best resolution so I wouldn't find out until I out it on the computer. Today I went out and came back with some I'm very happy with. Thank you!

This is some highly concentrated information with lots of good stuff in there! Usually you'll have to watch several different videos to get this much help. Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences and knowledge with us. Be safe and happy shooting out there!

Awesome tips/pointers there Mark, I will have to remember these when I'm out and about ;)

Great video Mark. Really hit some problem spots and helped a lot. Cheers

Thanks for taking the time to show me how much adjusting the settings can make a difference.

Luckily I never listened to other photographers. Every time I photograph, I use different aperture, exposure compensation and distance settings to see what works best.

My initial question is why do you want everything in focus? Might also be worth doing focus stacking if that is your goal

Excellent video Mark. I always learn something from your videos. Thank you. Alun

This is the most useful aducational video about aperture lesson on internet God Bless you Mr Mark thank you

Wonderful information which just earned you a new subscriber. Thank you!

Excellent Teaching Video, Thank You very much for your excellent detailed Video.

Here's an ISO-related mistake I have made: I produced a short movie with friends, recording everything with my FujiFilm X-T3. We shot in FLog at ISO 640 as that was the lowest for Log. A few weeks after the project I saw a pal2tech video testing the Fuji ISO performance and found out that my camera has two amplifiers. Stepping up one step to ISO 800 would've yielded me a lot less image noise and that little bit of better low light performance we would've needed without professional lighting in some cases. Safe to say, the next project I'll be shooting with ISO 800 as, at least in photos, the difference is quite noticeable.

Great video. Maybe it is in the 367 remarks down here but I do miss you mentioning the relationship between the focal point of the lens used and the aperture. It is very important to realize this.

Depends on whether you want deep focus or not. It’s a question of technique following intention.

Love the flip phone and Walkman. Great video!

Awesome video! Its amazing how many things are effected by one setting. A lot of people dont know that Aperture/Fstop does all that.

Yeah, thanks. I came a cross a term that i didn't know of, but i had figured out a metod, by testing my way forward on focus, and focus points to what's sharp and not. But the term is hyperfocus, as a tip Danny, DOF calculator is quite good, and has Hyperfocus as well. Is on known App stores. Hyperfocus is landscape term, to maximize the focus in your image at a given F-stop/focal length and some more parameters about sensor size and so forth, its wort the effort to understand

I'm no fancy photographer, but I have a lot of miles on my odometer and thought I would share some tips. First, as Ansel Adams used to emphasize, you usually want your blackest blacks in an image to just show the tiniest bit of detail. That gives caves, crevices, and underbrush a sense of depth. The same for your whitest whites. Digital cameras produce what looks like blocks of featureless white plastic in images that are saturated or "blown out". Featureless white plastic doesn't occur in natural scenes so the viewer knows something is wrong. If you are using Lightroom or something similar, adjust the histogram as the first step in the development process. Adjust the black setting just above total black and the white setting just below saturated white. Then adjust the shadows slider so you can just see into the dark areas and the highlights slider so you can just see some detail in the brightest areas. Finally, adjust the exposure slider to make the midtones what you want. Wash, rinse, repeat if necessary until the entire histogram is balanced. ONLY THEN start playing with clarity, saturation, and all of that. It gets complicated, but Mark is quite right about diffraction blur being important if you stop a lens down below f/11 or so. However, I would claim that it has a lot more to do with the size of the sensor and the number of pixels than on the lens itself. Still, the easiest way to figure all this out is to do some experiments with your own gear, as Mark suggests. If you look at Mark's images at high f/numbers, you will see not only softness but also a haze over the dark areas. This is called flare and even by itself makes images look out of focus. Again, thanks for the good tips.

Regarding 'mistake number five' it's worth remembering thatfocusing at infinity at a small aperture does not maximise depth of field. That's done by focusing at the hyperfocal distance, which is usually about one third of the way into the scene. I recognise that this is a bit advanced for this video, but I'm mentioning as the concept may be worth some of your viewers checking out. Good video though👏.

oooh, this is good. Delivery, presence, authenticity. I’m in

Just when you think you get it right aahh! This one is on my frustration list by far, however, you are so inspiring. Into autumn here in Tasmania Australia and I want those autumn leaves tack sharp, can she do it. Lol

Most lens reviews I have seen say F8 is the sweetspot, so I start with that, but focus is king and that includes depth of field and movement from grass etc, oh and having amazing views which is one part lacking where I live.

that first picture you took at f11 you focused on the closest thing to you which kills your depth of field. if you focus at infinity almost everything will be in focus. even if youre only using f4.. i forgot. check out a focal length vs aperture table and se how far the focus needs to be to be in infinity. its almost any aperture and any focal length outside of a certain range.

Great video! My biggest issue is trying to decide where to place my focal point to get as much in focus as possible.

Interesting and educational. Good one . Thanks

Just made this mistake yesterday. Thanks for the video.

Thanks, Mark. You sparked the idea for me to take the same picture at different f-stops for all my lenses. Interesting results. Most of my lenses are sharp at other than the largest and smallest f-stops, but my Canon 100mm. macro and Canon's 24mm are pretty much sharp across all f-stops -- pixel peeping done. Thanks for the idea -- no more Lens Stranger.

Thank you! I needed this video.

There is way too much to think about in photography. I almost always forget to do something or another.

It is important I think to find the hyperfocal if you want everything in focus, and where you focus might be as important as the aperture chosen. The tools that help you with depth of field are easy to use.

To help understand f numbers: f/1.4, f/2.8, f/22, etc. are ratios of the lens opening size (aperture) in relation to the focal length of the lens. At f/2 the aperture opening would be 1/2 the size of the focal length, f/8 is 1/8, and f/22 would be 1/22. So... f=focal length and the number following is the size of the opening. A "fast" lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.8, for instance, will be much bigger around (larger barrel and glass lens elements) based on the focal length of the lens than a lens that has a maximum aperture of, say, f/5.6. Smaller numbers = larger openings and, since it is a ratio, the actual physical opening size of f/1.8 would be much larger on a lens with a 100mm focal length than on a lens with a focal length of 24mm. Just like our eyes, larger apertures (think about your eye iris) let in more light while reducing the depth of field (the distance that is in focus).

Great video Mark, thank you. Choosing a right aperture for the scene was my struggle. What I also found interesting and inspiring is seeing your early photos, and what we can aspire to. Really enjoy your style of photography.

As usual, good job Mark. I like the way you explain things.

I read a comment awhile back where someone compared you to Bob Ross and I have to agree. Nice touch adding a clip of him to this video...well played, man.

Thanks Mark. Modern lenses are often lacking DoF scale, hence a a DoF app comes quite beneficial to check. Also I found that digital camera systems do not manage the DoF the same way, as old film ones. I am not sure why, but I see a bigger difference of sharpness, could be because my gear can result in sharper photos in general. Anyway, I see a much bigger demand for focus stacking at landscapes than ever before - I would even argue that your nice canyon shot with an old tree in the foreground could not have been made old the way that sharp without focus stacking. Also the best perfomring glasses recently are optimized for wide open sharpness and often they already start dropping IQ performance above F8, so "traditional" landscape type apertures are not working that well any more, hence again the need for focus stacking. Of course you are right that having the end result in mind, you do not often need everything in focus, but it is very difficult to check what exactly is in sharp focus on location just using the built in monitor of the camera body, hence again the need for an app that calculates that.

Some lenses have a zone focus guide printed on them which really helps to set the appropriate aperture.

Great I will try this. Very helpful 👌

For close to infinity focus in landscapes I would close down the aperture as much as I can before diffraction kicks in, if you have subjects in a frame that are close to the camera you can use a wider aperture depending on your personal preference. Always be aware of how many foreground or background elements are comprising your image. The key to good composure is a good balance of both especially if you are using an open aperture.

Hey Mark - Tks again so much. I imagine that shortly, I will have more than enough "mistakes" to fill your bucket. Heading out very soon to the Smokys. Have not shot, as I mentioned earlier, in over a year. Been gorging on your videos to rebuild my memory with my Fuji's + yr. landscape/photo tips regarding ISO, Aperture, SS etc. Will take my compulsive notes with me for reference but most of all enjoy the experience in nature. Would love sometime to see short video on your Fuji settings if you get a spare moment.

Great Tips! I remember when I had no idea what aperture was and I would take landscape photos on very low apertures. Won’t be making that mistake again!

Learned a lot from this! Great video!

Thanks, some really great info !!

I have to watch this video again. I could not concentrate on your words, because I could not take off my eyes of the walkman. I used to have one of those and so many nice memories came back. I think that is the most iconic walkman ever! Are you still using it? :)

10:00 I actually like the softer look to that image, gives it a sort of "foggy" and washed out layer which adds to its mystical qualities. I guess that could've also been done in post processing bust still. 😂

Chock full of info to apply in the field. Always good to understand why a photo didn’t work. Thank you!

Thank you for the review. Knowing the capabilities of lenses is especially important for situations where it is tough to focus e.g. night photography.

Great tutorial! Infinity focus + proper aperture selection is fine for many photos, of course, but setting the farthest-most element to the *hyperfocal distance* for your given f-stop is more flexible and often better, as it can allow wider apertures while still keeping everything in focus (AND allows for higher shutter speeds to combat camera shake).

very useful tips. thank you.

How wonderfully explained Mark! Thank you for making the video very informative.

Yes! I’ve learned the hard way about aperture and have been frustrated by it in the past when I didn’t fully understand what was going on in my images. Every example you’ve given, I’ve experienced so this is brilliant for people getting into landscape photography as aperture is so crucial. I felt myself nodding and agreeing through this whole video haha.

The best of all to learn and the rule of a quarter into frame and Remember!! . Not till I saw your first video did I check lenses and finally understood!! Everyone wants the fast glass for bokeh/faster SS at night but stay wide. The sharpest is about two stops above widest.

Hi Mark. Thanks for sharing this helpful info. I went thru the motion as yourself and started researching my lenses to figure out the sweet spot for each. Can’t help but admit the advantage of smaller sensors like smartphones when it comes to getting everything in focus. Not sure if camera manufacturers can achieve that using computational photography in the future and alleviate the need for manual focus stacking.

Depends on focal length of camera, hyperfocal distance. The Queen's bath image is one of the most difficult spots imaginable. Must be 15-18 stops of light.

If one studies the history of photography, it is interesting to learn that many of the world's most powerful photos are not totally in focus. It is fun to try and get the sharpest images but it should never be at the cost of the impact of the photo. This is a very informative lesson. Nice !

may be you've explained it in a previous video that i've missed. No matter witch aperture you choose, how depth of field is distributed ? Always one third forward and two thirds backward from your focus point. Sorry for my english and hope it can be helpfull. Thanks for sharing your experience AND your mistakes

Good information...Would be good to talk about hyperfocal focus and why not to focus on infinity when using small apertures so you can get more in focus in the foreground.

Another informative easy to understand lesson thanks

Must of the time f/8 to f/10 would be my go to aperture for most of my landscapes. Great video too 👍🏼

BOY been there done that. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks Mark! Good info and advice. I think we all have made at least one of those mistakes, if not all of them. I think the one I repeatedly fall prey to is not paying attention to what’s in the foreground of my scene and whether it’s in focus. Thanks again!

I so enjoy your tips! I learn so much. Thanks Mark.

Please make a Video about focus point mistake and when to use it creatively 😊

Thanks for pointing out these mistakes and solutions. I will work to improve my eye for composition.

Exposure is important but I only adjust it with ISO or ND filter. You can't really use aperture or shutter speed for that because they interfere the creative intent (well, you have some leeway of course).

Perfect. I just dont see any difference to shutter speed. Both should be decide based on the result I want. Then, I check how to use the other one and iso. And the other two would tell me if I need a tripod or focus stacking or increase distance to hyperfocal distance. That is why we have the automatic modes as Apperture or Speed PRIORITY. Meaning your composition should be attached to one of them as a priority.

For all of you commenting about focus stacking, he has a seperate video about that. I think the point of the video here is to try and get all the settings right and leave out post-processing.

Great information and well presented. Thank you.

Your videos are always very interesting. They give me, always, very interesting insights. Thank you so much.😉😉👍🏻👍🏻

What a great video and again it teaches me I've still got a LOT to learn. But well that's the beauty of this hobby, not only getting great results from time to time but also learn every single time ! Thanks again. Will check out more of your videos.

Tqvm Mark 4 your priceless info..it helps a lot 4 us photographers...keep up your comment & knowledge..👍👍👍

Very informative video, Mark. I had some bad aperture habits when I first stated off. I always loved shooting Portraits at 2.8 no matter what. Keep up the great work!

Excellent informative content thank you Mark for sharing!

Great Vid! Thanks.

Thanks Mark

Another really useful & informative video,, I especially like the canyon & tree image.

Your videos are outstanding. Explanations are clear and concise. One recommendation: Eliminate the phrase 'kind of' from your vocabulary. Repetitive and irritating to the listener

Well, for No. 5, try not focusing on the subject of interest. You got way more depth of field after focus point than before. So instead of focusing at 50m away, getting 2m-infinity in focus. Focus at 30m to get 1m-200m in focus. Just an example.

Great clip, thanks

Great lesson! Aperture is one of those things I haven't really mastered in regards to focus. I feel better educated about it, and I'm looking forward to getting those tack sharp photos I'm always hoping for.

You get a thumbs up for the Bob Ross reference alone 👌

I think we all went through this to some degree. Sweet Ansel Adams T-shirt by the way- I don't see that one on the Nature photography collective site anymore... :-(

Thanks Mark. Always great advice from you and I take notice. I’m usually very careful with my aperture and focal points, focus stacking is a preference of mine but only used if necessary.

Nice video. I'm really wanting to get back into photography in a bigger way. But this time my goal is to be more expert in every way. I took photography in college. Did some of my own darkroom work. But didn't do much with it until around 2010. I started to build a very small photography business. I kept buying more capable equipment. But I never really mastered any of it. Then a few years ago I sold my pro camera bodies because money was tight. Something I still regret. Last August I bought a really nice pro camera and lens. Best I've ever owned. But before rushing out and just snapping tons of just okay photos I've decided to learn as much as I can from pros like you. Thank you for your channel. It is educating me and encouraging me. It really means a lot. I know it is hard work producing quality videos like this and I want you to know I appreciate your effort. I live near the Pisgah National Forest. I'm eager to get out there and hopefully capture the beauty of this area for all to see.