Canon’s ADepth setting?
- This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Aug 25, 2008 at 1:23 pm by
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For all you Canon guys, I have a question regarding the A-Dep setting in the creative mode.
According to the user’s guide, you are supposed to use this setting when you want the camera to automaticaly keep the foreground and background in sharp focus. Does anyone know HOW exactly the A-Dep setting accpomlishes this? Does it just set the camera to a very small aperture (which may not give you the sharpest images due to diffraction), or does it somehow set the camera to use the hyperfocal distance? It seems the only way to get really sharp images throughout would be to use the HFD.
In the past, I have used the A-Dep setting when shooting landscapes, but I am now thinking that for the landscapes I should manualy set the HFD at an aperture of around f5.6 – f/11 in order to get the sharpest results.
Can’t help you with auto mode because I never use it, but I will say that figuring it out yourself isn’t that hard.
If you focus 1/3 into the depth you need and stop the lens down you should be able to see if the back’s sharp at the opening you’ve set.
Don’t stop the lens down all the way, most 35mm lenses are loosing sharpness at a great rate below 11.
With a wide lens f11 should do a landscape with no problem if you’ve set focus in the right place.
I’m sorry if this only causes more questions, depth of field is the hardest thing in photography IMHO and takes some effort to learn, though once you know it’s easy.
(like women maybe ?www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
True Bill, every lens/camera is different, though most 35mm lenses are getting soft by f16 – how much you might notice would depend on the use.
With fast prime lenses I almost never shoot beyond f8, but the macro’s work ok even at f16.
On my old Polaroid 600 SE cameras the longer lenses stop down to f128
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
John.
I played with Adep alot when I first started and all I can say is after awhile I figured out I was better off sticking to M. The only time I’ll use Adep now is i I’m faced with needing to capture an quick or impromtu “snap” of a group of people. Where there might not be time for retakes and I want everyone from the nearest to the furthest within the DoF.Take this with a grain a salt as landscape arent my thing or strength but try as much as you can to use manual and i need be the “DoF” preview button. I myself rarely, rarely discern any change with it but there are those who say they can.
Bill/Dave
With regards to stopping down alot and subsequent hits to IQ. I always thought that was more a product of the lens then the body????Meaning some lenses can handle stopping down to f16 or f22 and other couldnt???I shoot a canon 10 D currently, which is a 6.3 mp camera. You can use a calculator in the link below to see at what aperture diffraction comes into play. For me, it is at f/8 (using 20/20 vision, not the industry standard which is less critical) : http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm
scroll down to the bottom of the article for the calculator.
Interestingly, enough, the camera body didn’t make a difference (at least comparing a 6.3 mp to a 10 mp like the 40D), you still end up with the same result.
Adep is in the creative mode and is above the Manual setting on your dial.
In the past, I have taken pictures in both manual mode and also experimented with the adep setting.
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