Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/11/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]In the latest issue of ColorFoto (Germany) there's an interesting article about the limitations of digital cameras at certain lens apertures. It's all to do with refraction and pixel sizes, Airy disk size or Fraunhofer circles of diffraction - the main article is pretty much physics/optical theory but the list of cameras and limiting apertures is interesting. What it boils down to is - it's not worth stopping down to get a sharper image any further than the apertures shown below, it just won't increase sharpness, in fact it will get unsharp. (NOT DOF, that, of course, will increase) Camera/aperture Canon EOS 1Ds Mk II 11.8 Canon EOS 1D Mk II 13.4 Nikon D70 12.9 Fujifilm S3 Pro 12.5 Canon EOS 20 D 10.6 Sigma SD10 15.0 4/3 cameras 9.0 And it gets worse for compacts. It finally explains why my macro shots with f16 were not as pin-sharp as those with f8. Douglas