Photo originally uploaded by gerome

Ever see that informercial with the annoying catchphrase “Set It and Forget It”? Sometimes the same principle applies in photography.

With some photos, you just don’t want to over-complicate things. This photo is a perfect example of a situation in which it’s easy to get a great shot without a lot of tinkering around. See how after the jump.

The Situation

You have a photo where everything is at nearly the same distance away from the lens. A good example of this is a man standing against a wall - there are only slight differences in distance. Depth-of-field isn’t going to be a concern since there are no real creative options available. So which aperture do you shoot it at?

The Solution

When presented in a situation like this, the best approach is to simply set your lens to f/8 and forget about it. Here’s why: most lenses aren’t as sharp wide open at smaller f/numbers and lose some sharpness to diffraction at extremely high f/numbers. F/8 represents the sweet spot of most lenses - the region in which sharpness peaks. Since everything is equidistant from the lens, the whole scene will turn out tack sharp.

The other advantage to F/8 is that it should be able to support a fairly fast shutter speed, especially outdoors or at higher ISOs. It is still firmly in the range where hand holding a camera is still possible - no tripod necessary.

Like what you see? Join our newsletter.