F/8 and Be There

Jupiter, Venus, Mercury triple planet Conjunction

Jupiter, Venus, Mercury Conjunction

Most photographers have probably heard the phrase “F/8 and be there”? Why is it considered good advice? The advantage of “be there” is obvious, the only way you’re going to get the shot is if you’re present for it in the first place.

For F-stop choice, F/8 is likely near the center of your lens’s range, so it’s sharp (the far reaches of f-stop can be a little soft). It’s faster than stopping down to f/11, 16, or 22. You’re unlikely to run into loss of resolution to diffraction (not that I think that’s an overriding reason to favor one f-stop over another for diffraction reasons… a conversation for another time).

F/8 also tends to result in shallow enough depth of field, you resolve close to none of the dust spots on your sensor (maybe one or two of the really big ones). Yet F/8 has a deep enough depth of field with an ultra-wide lens that it still can be used for landscape photography.

Personally, I often use a circular polarizing filter, so I can see the full colors that are actually present in a landscape (as opposed to the color-cancelling glare reflecting off of virtually everything). F/8 enables me to have 2 extra stops of light compared to f/16, so I gain back the two stops of light typically lost to a circular polarizing filter. So I don’t get unusually long exposures if I want to shoot hand-held. You can take a “street photographer approach” to shooting in new locations, varying perspective and composition quickly and without the constraint, delay, and creative interruption of having to adjust a tripod. All the better if you start to raise ISO, you can do it as light intensity drops in golden hour.

All things considered, f/8 is a solid technical technique to use for many reasons.

Some great shots come from simply being out, and getting lucky with great light that you wouldn’t have encountered if you hadn’t motivated yourself to “be there.” And f/8 might be a reasonable f-stop choice if you want to focus on seeing great subjects and compositions and not have to bother yourself with the distractions and “administrivia” of everything else.

While serendipity can deliver you fantastic moments in nature that you wouldn’t have predicted, even many of those opportunities can often be anticipated and maximized by arriving in a great location in a peak season. Ideally you want to be in a great location, in a peak season, in times of great light (weather or sunrise, sunset), and have interesting subjects to place in strong compositions.

I tend to take cameras everywhere I go, so when I was driving to and from Truckee on May 24, 2013 I was able to stop by Lake Tahoe and look for the Jupiter, Venus and Mercury conjunction. There were too many clouds in the sky to see the planets, but I was treated to a nice sunset.

Some of my favorite photos were taken when I was expecting to capture something else. So get out for any reason, but remember to take your camera just in case!

Here are my results from chasing that three planet conjunction event four days in a row, including a time-lapse video from the best day: http://activesole.blogspot.com/2013/05/venus-jupiter-mercury-conjunction-1080p.html