Without realising I’ve been shooting to extremes for the longest time. It feels like if you have an expensive Sony GM f/2.8 lens, you should be shooting it at f/2.8. My 85mm prime seems wasted if not photographed wide open.
While I’m out shooting properties on a tripod on a bright sunny day I’m often all the way at the other end of the spectrum to cut light and get everything in focus.
For the last 4 years, the rest of the gamut honestly may as well not exist.
In my daily walks with the x100v I’ve been thinking about this more. It started as problem solving, the leaf shutter inside the camera has a funny quirk where at f/2 after about 1/4000th it can’t quite close fast enough. The image is absolutely fine but the bokeh starts to look a little weird - kind of like motion blur.
Anyway, just to get the exposure I want and avoid this problem, I’ve been shooting at f/3.5-5.6
And it’s great. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact it’s better in some ways as when you stop down a couple of times the lens actually starts to get sharper.
Anyway I realise now that unless you’re shooting dreamy close up portraits, for most reasons you don’t need the maximum possible bokeh.
As an added bonus, you will also be missing focus less. It’s very forgiving.
