Quick Tips

3. Improving Optical Performance

Stopping aperture down increases depth of field, making the

 

 

foreground and background sharper. Stop aperture down

 

 

too far, however, and diffraction will actually cause the image

 

 

to lose definition. The effects of diffraction are partly influ-

 

 

enced by the size of the pixels in the camera image sensor,

 

 

but with the D800/D800E’s high resolution the effects gen-

 

 

erally become noticeable around f/11. When you need more

 

 

depth of field, don’t just immediately stop the lens all the way

 

 

down; instead, look for the aperture that offers the best bal-

 

 

ance between sharpness and depth of field. In the examples

f/8

f/11

on this page, you can see the grid lose definition as aperture

 

 

is stopped down past f/11.

f/16

f/22

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Image 15
Nikon 25498B manual Improving Optical Performance