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Learn to Use It!
Lately I’ve found myself shooting ‘wide open’ a lot (with a wide open Aperture). It all started with my purchase of a Leica M9P which I bundled with a couple of f1.4 lenses. Like many Leica shooters I tend to gravitate to shooting at wide open apertures which are both challenging to shoot at (as the depth of field is so shallow than being just a little off can ruin a shot) and which can result in some really dreamy shots.
Interestingly since getting the Leica I’m finding myself shooting with my Canon 5D wide open a lot more too.
Following are a series of shots all shot wide open – most are shot at f1.4 with a few shot at f1.8 and f0.95. Enjoy!
![Project 365 Day 104: On The Frets [explored!]](https://i1.wp.com/digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/4521914388_fa7b03ae53_z.jpg?resize=600&ssl=1)
![[Autunno] in Passeggiata, again](https://i2.wp.com/digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/5119930823_cb4a579a9b_z.jpg?resize=600&ssl=1)
Want to Learn More about Shooting Images Wide Open?
Check out these related tutorials:
- An Introduction to Aperture
- How to Get Shallow Depth of Field in Your Portraits
- A Deeper Look into Depth of Field
- A Fresh Look at Depth of Field: Using Foreground to Achieve Creative Depth of Field
Which lens do you use that is f0.95 ( and how much does is cost:)
Bokeh in photography provokes a nostalgic feeling, at least that's what it makes me feel.
It's an amazing collection, you have a very good taste.
Your images are stunning. Your review of the M9P is so down-to-earth. I appreciate both your photographic and verbal styles. Thanks, Marty
Great set of images. I love shooting wide and am lucky enough to have f2.8's in the bag :)
Great photo's, got me excited! Put on my nikkor 50mmf1.2 ais for a thin slice of DOF. This lens is still sold new, but is a manual focus lens. At f1.2 this lens is amazing by f2 it's perfection edge to edge. There's plenty of photo's on the internet using this lens at f1.2, take a look if your a Nikonian. I feel it gets into Leica territory for sharpness.
http://s1094.photobucket.com/albums/i454/pappy0352/Horses/
Very beautiful shots. Wish if I have a better camera
Here what I took yesterday using that I have
Hope you like it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutaev/7080402663/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutaev/6934323490/in/photostream/
Great shots
http://www.flickr.com/photos/c_delas/
I'm quite fond of messing with wide open settings myself and you are right it is often challenging but when you get the DOF just right you can get some great images.
here's some of my wide open shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kieran1388/6979920049/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kieran1388/6868911526/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kieran1388/6833824712/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kieran1388/6856935534/in/photostream
The very first photo has such depth in it, it's really intriguing.
Uh...you shot these?! Incredible! Love em!
Love the shallow depth of field shooting wide open gives you
http://500px.com/photo/5961459
A recent shot of my wife wide open, the other of a flower/tree scene. Thanks for looking!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45517597@N07/6922577626/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45517597@N07/6878992216/
http://marius-fotografie.blogspot.com/2012/03/ceata.html
I love trying these wonderful shots. I am slowly improving but I am still having fun. Here are mine.
http://funmommie.blogspot.com/2012/04/photography.html
I love shooting wide open. Maybe the difficulty/possibility of blowing the shot if you're slightly off is part of the fun.
dreamy shots are too good.
http://raghavendra-mobilephotography.blogspot.in/2011/12/majestic-shine-of-leaf.html
very nice wide open images...
here is my shot playing wide open
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imamtho/6943303625/in/photostream/
Beautiful!
I shoot like this fairly often although in my case wide open is more like 4-5.6 on my big zoom lens plus distance to enhance dof.
I have one very much like the guitar ones: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43017182@N06/6229459076/in/photostream
and my latest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43017182@N06/6917204132/in/photostream
I love shooting with a wide angle lens. I am finding it more & more on my camera.
Whew! Breathtaking, Gorgeous, WOW! :0)
@Jerry: I am the photographer of the guitar image. I can confirm that it was shot wide open at f/1.4. DOF is a funny thing sometimes.
wonderful shots! the blue image with hands in foreground is stunning!
Thanks for sharing these beautiful images. Inspires me to go out and shoot 'wide open' this weekend!
Wow great shot indeed! I still do wide shots now but not so often. Here's some of my takes before:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30196630@N08/4393990103/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30196630@N08/3158766378/in/set-72157607749440460
I love shooting wide open with my 35mm 1.8 Nikkor. I do find that I have to watch light sources as I end up with hot spots on cheeks and forheads unless I drop down to 2.8.
Beautiful images. I have a 50 mm 1.8, but most of the time I'm shooting with a min. of 2.8 in my other lenses. I'm looking forward to the challenge of limiting my focal depth even more. I especially admire the lips photo with the backlighting.
A new lens gave me the chance to experiment shooting wide open at a local model boat competition
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellan_vannin/7035237867/in/set-72157629715824941
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellan_vannin/7035239505/in/set-72157629715824941
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellan_vannin/6889145996/in/set-72157629715824941
Great pictures!
However I found myself doubting whether they are all really shot at 1.4- 1.8
My personal experience with 50mm is that shooting at less than 2.0 would give you significantly smaller depth of field as presented on the pictures
In particular the cat and those fingers on guitar are the ones for which I find it hard to believe in f1.4
Great images. Personally the cat is my favourite... wonderful composition.
I love the shots though I read on a convo twitter that there's some photoshop. However, the beauty in them cant be taken away. Good stuff.
Stunning images!
Stunning! I too love wide open shots and there are so many I here that I love! Great motivation, thanks for sharing!
Love all the images. Beautiful.
I shoot wide open all the time...the only way to shoot :)
This is one of my latest...weeds in the garden
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sue90ca/7061582087/
Absolutely beautiful!
These photos are the photos that I wish to duplicate.. ;D__ what's why I wish to buy 85mm f/1.4 rather than 70-200 f/2.8..
Wow.. this article really helps... Great article~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would say there are 22 dreamy images. 1 nightmare. 1 Canon lens cap and I dude lost in Asia.
I just wanted to say that these images are absolutely stellar! So stunning! I wish I could shoot like that!!
Wow, incredible photos. This is something I need to try more often, I tend to shoot in aperture mode a lot and at the highest DoF I can get with the available light.
This is f/2.8, and probably one of the (few) best shallow shots I have.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lendog64/5606277584/
Leica M9P is incredible camera and I have just tested it for some few minutes and price is very much holding me back from buying one. But this camera has some special aura around it.
These shots are incredible! Very nice collection
To me wide open is just fantastic! You have to love it.
Here are some of my wide open shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frabuzin/7032803087/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frabuzin/5506617483/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frabuzin/5539537341/
There is some amazing composition in these shots. And such a wide array of subjects that fit perfect for this style. I believe it is easy to get trapped in a style and fail to venture out and explore techniques. I will need to try to take a greater effort in capturing these types of images.
These are all great photos. Really inspiring. Come check out my site guys and let me know what you all think
Fusion Photography
I too like shooting wide open. Definitely a challenge, especially in less than ideal light when trying to find the right focus point:
http://flic.kr/p/9NGG8w
http://flic.kr/p/9QPffm
http://flic.kr/p/9WNixt
http://flic.kr/p/aSNW7P
I like the train track and the bar.
http://disney-photography-blog.blogspot.com/
I love the images here. I just got a new car and I shot the car's nameplate wide open.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tallok/7040453071/
Lovely images as usual. A bit of dreaminess here?
http://blogs.gonomad.com/traveltalesfromindia/2012/04/a-flowery-post.html
Woah! I just did a double take on my google reader as one of my own images scrolled into view! Thanks for including me alongside such awesome shots.
Dreamy butterfly:
http://wildlifeencounters.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/African-Insects-butterflies-and-Spiders/G0000P6fRom6cZrw/I0000XSDZvHmNzjg
Nice images! I love the dreamlike effect that shooting wide open causes. Of course, like most techniques, it's not always the best way to go, but can create some amazing images.
Here's some recent images from a model railroad show. the lighting conditions forced me to shoot wide open, but I really like the results:
http://blog.jeffejensenphotography.com/2012/03/trains.html
I don't shoot wide open to much anymore. It is something I need to get back into. I just got my Nikkor 24-70 2.8 in today so I guess I can start with that.
Here's a shot from a bit ago.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22176685@N07/6804123891/in/photostream