I freely admit I had the f numbering backwards in my list of steps, but it was
the smallest aperture that was important. I have now got that. Firmly.
Permanently. Thanks.

GWE

Geoff Schultz wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in
:


Grant Erwin wrote:


I often want to shoot a picture of some detail just to post it as an
adjunct to a discussion, as "a picture is worth a thousand words". I
have terrible trouble shooting closeups with digital cameras. I have
finally found the method that yields the best results:

use minimum aperture for max depth of field (f2.8)

Whoa. That would be the _maximum_ aperture on most digitals. Minimum
would be down around F/8 or F/16. That might be part of your problem.


The maximum aperture is when the lens is all of the way open (lowest F
number) and provides the minimum depth of field. When the lens is at the
minimum aperture (highest F number) you get the maximum depth of field.

Typical full f-stops are numbered:

1.4 2.0 2.8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22

and for every F-stop increase you halve the light reaching the film/sensor.
That means that you need to increase either the flash power or the exposure.
You probably don't want to increase the exposure as you can introduce camera
shake which will blur your photos.

-- Geoff