Nikon D70 and F-stops

[terry_mccully]

I know it is depending on the lense... but my sony F707 had a max of

only F8 which sucked for landscapes... I would have liked F32 or

more... what is the best that the Nikon D70 could do (landscape

detail through out picture in mind)... I may need to learn about

Lenses and how they rate for Fstops too.. see Im used to my fixed

lense Sony F707.... any help would be great....

[jim_fenton1]

Terry.....

The D70 (of which I am a proud owner) can handle what a lense offers it...I believe up to F32. Maybe it's higher but thats the smallest opening that any of my Nikon glass is able to provide.

Keep in mind however that most lenses have "sweet spots" around f11-f16 and that in many cases, their performance suffers after that.

 

Also keep in mind that the D70 only goes to ISO 200 so in brightly lit situations, you may want to consider having an ND filter or two of varying intensities to cut down on some of the incoming light so that you don't have to work at f-stops outside of the optimal performance parameters for a given piece of glass.

 

Jim

[todd peach seattle, washi]

I'm *way* over-generalizing here, but f/8 on a 9.7mm lens (your 707) is going to be in the same neighborhood as f/32 on a 35mm lens in terms of DOF for landscapes. Both are somewhat 'beyond' typical diffraction limits for optics, and that's why you don't see smaller f-stops (typically).

[gl5]

"the D70 only goes to ISO 200"

 

true, but it has a top shutter speed of 1/8000 of sec. so the ISO 200 issue is not much of an issue.

[david_kieltyka1]

The 707 is limited to f/8 because diffraction effects would kill image quality at smaller apertures. This is due to the camera's tiny sensor and correspondingly short focal lengths (and thus the large degree of magnification required for a print of a given size). The D70 has a larger sensor and thus can handle smaller apertures, though at f/32 image quality still degrades. With a large format camera you can get away with f/64 and still have a reasonably crisp image because the film (or scanning back) is so large.

 

-Dave-

[pablo_s]

Somebody's mentioned this already, but in case it wasn't very clear: everything else being equal, f/8 on your sony F707 gives you roughly as much DoF as f/22 on the D70, because DoF depends on sensor size which is way smaller in the sony F707 - I think Bob Atkins discusses this at length in some of his articles.

 

Some other things to keep in mind:

 

* Shorter focal lengths give you more DoF (again, everything else being equal). That's good since short focal length are common in landscape photography.

 

* Another very important factor is the distance to the closest object. Assuming you have some very distant objects in your composition, the closest objects should be at least half the hyperfocal length away from you (I'm really not an expert so correct me if I'm mistaken). So what you need is a chart giving you the hyperfocal for all the different combinations of focal length and aperture in your lens.

 

* Very narrow apertures have difraction problems. Even if your lens goes all the way to f/32, that doesn't mean it's always a good idea to use f/32.

 

I think that you should just practice and get some practical experience. Just don't be crazy about the narrowest aperture of your lens.

 

Pablo

[wogears]

"Somebody's mentioned this already, but in case it wasn't very clear: everything else being equal, f/8 on your sony F707 gives you roughly as much DoF as f/22 on the D70, because DoF depends on sensor size which is way smaller in the sony F707 - I think Bob Atkins discusses this at length in some of his articles."

 

No. No. No. That's NOT how it works. DOF is determined by focal length and focal ratio (f-number). Look at it this way. Suppose I have a 20mm lens. I use it, at f8, to shoot the exact same scene on an N80 and a D70. Because of the smaller sensor on the D70, it has the equivalent angle of view of a 30mm lens on that camera; i/e it is not as "wide-angle" a view. HOWEVER, if I use my scanner software to select an area on the N80 chrome which is exactly the same size as the D70's sensor, then the images will be IDENTICAL IN ALL RESPECTS INCLUDING DOF (except for the differences between film and CCD of course). This is why digicams have such enormous DOF; their 7mm lenses would yield the same depth on 35mm cameras if they could "cover the plate".

[terry_mccully]

Thanks for all your help guys... I learned alot ! ! ! !