how do you know which aperture would work best when you are actually shooting? you say get the best depth of field, can you elaborate? the lower aperture setting gets less of the picture in focus, correct? as in, there is less depth of the scene that is in focus, correct?

so, absolute best for darker pics of stationary items is low low ISO and long shutter....but what about the aperture?

 

The main deciding factor on what aperture you should shoot with (aside from proper exposure) is, like you mentioned, depth of field. If your subject is further away, it's going to be hard to focus accurately if you had a narrow depth of field, so wider depth of field would make focusing easier. Shooting landscapes you want the foreground and background crisp and sharp, so HUGE depth of field is the goal. For shooting portraits, you really only want their face in focus, which isn't more than an inch or two deep, so a narrow depth of field works better.

So, in effect, yes, a wide aperture means less of the scene is in focus (and you need to focus more accurately on the thing you want to be in focus) and a narrow aperture means more of the scene is in focus...but that's a wierd way to think about it. I think about it as two invisible walls. The closer wall defines the beginning of my depth of field, and the further defines the end of my DoF. Just sandwich your subject between the walls!

Shooting stationary in dark means low ISO and long shutter. Low ISO is to prevent your pictures from getting noise which occures sometiems with long exposures. Aperture depends on the subject. a small object? wide aperture. A car? mid-aperture. A scene? narrow aperture. What if you're shooting something tiny, but you want the back/foreground in focus too? narrow aperture. It all depends how you want your photo to turn out!

 

Uh wait.....what?

 

good job vegasboy & Zemo .. very informative!

 

Seriously, what did I miss? What did Vegasboy say?