 | May 23, 2013 Breaking news from America's top photo magazines |   | |  | Take that, lens coatings Lens companies often go to great lengths to fight lens flare. But, to some shooters, those unpredictable streaks, spots, and stars of light make for an extremely appealing aesthetic. For last month's photo challenge, we asked you to go out and push your lenses to their limits. |
| | An aggressive new strategy in an attempt to make Flickr awesome again | | Higher resolution, better autofocus, and faster bursts—not to mention a swiveling LCD, all for a swoon-worthy price | | Enter for a chance to win cash and be printed in the magazine |
 Be the first to hear about new stuff on PopPhoto.com by subscribing to our revamped RSS feed! | | | TECH SUPPORT Why Midrange Apertures are Sharper
Judging by reader mail, there's still some confusion out there about aperture selection and image sharpness. While smaller apertures (e.g., f/22) produce deeper slices of sharpness from front to back, the central focused-upon subject of your picture will usually always be sharper when captured by an intermediate aperture (e.g., f/8).
Why? Because of diffraction. When light rays strike an object, such as the diaphragm blades of a lens, the rays tend to bend or diffract, an action that adversely affects sharpness. When you set your smallest aperture, a greater percentage of all the light rays transmitted through the lens are diffracted, resulting in a subject that's relatively fuzzy compared to what's possible with the less-diffracted rays typical of wider apertures. And why do the widest apertures (e.g., f/2.8) also produce a relatively fuzzy subject? That's a subject for another "Tech Support." |
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