Sharpest F stop mavic 2 Pro??

[offtheback]

Anyone have thoughts about the ideal F stop on the Mavic 2 pro for best sharpness.Depth of field not a consideration.Thanks!

 

[gnirtS]

Many threads on this already with examples.

Roughly f/4 but f/2.8 isnt far off. 5.6 is ok but quality degrades after it.

Easy test to do yourself.

 

[offtheback]

Many threads on this already with examples.

Roughly f/4 but f/2.8 isnt far off. 5.6 is ok but quality degrades after it.

Easy test to do yourself.

Thanks---my 1/2 brain did a search after I asked the question!

 

[CanadaDrone]

Many threads on this already with examples.

Roughly f/4 but f/2.8 isnt far off. 5.6 is ok but quality degrades after it.

Easy test to do yourself.

Actually it degrades after F4 - it is already doing so by F5.6 but the user may or may not notice. By F5.6 it is smearing data intended for a single pixel (partially) over an area of approximately 9 pixels. This is a property of the sensor and the circle of confusion can be easily calculated.

 

[Melor]

I am surprised. It has been a long time since I researched such things and it was for film/digital full frame 35mm lenses but I always assumed lens induced issues were minimized at f8. Guess that is no longer the case! Good info, Hope it is accurate.

Paul

 

[kilomikebravo]

Hope it is accurate.

It is. First click on MF then touch the infinity symbol once. You will see the top bar move down slightly and for me that has been the perfect focus point. Definitely not my tip but it works and thanks to the person who came up with it. Sorry, I’ve already forgotten who that was.

After that I just leave it in MF.

 

[CanadaDrone]

I am surprised. It has been a long time since I researched such things and it was for film/digital full frame 35mm lenses but I always assumed lens induced issues were minimized at f8. Guess that is no longer the case! Good info, Hope it is accurate.

Paul

Diffraction is not a lens property, it is a sensor property related to the aperture used. If a particular lens is sharpest at F5.6, for example, that can be tested in isolation without an image sensor behind it. They are separate variables. If you put the best lens in the world on a DSLR and use F32, it will look like garbage compared to a wider, more reasonable aperture and that is due to diffraction rather than lens quality.

Regarding your typical DSLR/35mm lens, F8 is almost never a lens' sharpest aperture, somewhere between wide open and F5.6 is the sharpest aperture for a lens 99% of the time, but this is something optical engineers can influence. Some lenses are designed to be sharpest wide open, some are not. Typically as you stop the lens down you trade maximum/center sharpness for overall sharpness and better corners - this is not a rule but is most often how lenses are designed. F8 is common landscape aperture, because trading absolute sharpness for overall sharpness is often preferable in that situation - but on sensors like that on the M2Z/M2P, pixel density is so high that you don't want to get anywhere near F8 unless you absolutely have to. Everything is a compromise in photography/videography

 

[Roamer105]

Strictly pixel peeping I found the sharpest is wide open 2.8. It is nearly as good up to about 4.5. You need to add ND filters or shorten the shutter time quite a bit.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Strictly pixel peeping I found the sharpest is wide open 2.8. It is nearly as good up to about 4.5. You need to add ND filters or shorten the shutter time quite a bit.

Assuming you are OK with both F2.8 and F4.0, you can get away with fewer ND filters on the M2P which is really nice. If you buy a ND4 and ND16 you also effectively have an ND8 and ND32 just by stopping down from F2.8 to F4.0 respectively. And those 4 filters (or their equivalents via aperture change) is probably all most people need.

 

[kilomikebravo]

You need to add ND filters or shorten the shutter time quite a bit.

Boy is that ever true in South Texas even in October. I thought for sure an ND16 would be my go to filter but I found even with that the highlights were blown out in small areas. So now at least in bright sunshine, the ND32 is the one I will use most of the time because it can get me in that aperture sweet spot and still hold the shutter speed.

ND16 Clip 4k Dlog Graded

ND32 Clip 4k Dlog Graded

KB

 

[gnirtS]

I am surprised. It has been a long time since I researched such things and it was for film/digital full frame 35mm lenses but I always assumed lens induced issues were minimized at f8. Guess that is no longer the case! Good info, Hope it is accurate.

Paul

Some issues there. Lots of (D)SLR lenses were generally sharpest 1-2 stops down from full open. As most lenses were f/4-f/5.6 thats where this came from.

As well as that the M2P has a tiny sensor with a high pixel density - the drop of sharpness over f/5.6 and in particular big decline from f/8 and narrower is due to light diffraction and is rooted in basic physics so the lens really isnt doing anything here as it cant.

In other news, people get hugely overly fixated with the 180 shutter "rule" when in reality for most types of video a significantly higher shutter speed still wont be visible in the shot.

 

[DanMan32]

You would think a bigger aperture number would be sharper since as the iris gets smaller, it becomes more like a pinhole camera.

 

[offtheback]

I am surprised. It has been a long time since I researched such things and it was for film/digital full frame 35mm lenses but I always assumed lens induced issues were minimized at f8. Guess that is no longer the case! Good info, Hope it is accurate.

Paul

I come from the film days and had the same notion as you.5.6-8 was often the sweet spot.Digital lenses are much sharper out of necessity.I have an Olympus M4/3 camera and a 2.8 lens is best at about F/4

 

[SteveCA]

Boy is that ever true in South Texas even in October. I thought for sure an ND16 would be my go to filter but I found even with that the highlights were blown out in small areas. So now at least in bright sunshine, the ND32 is the one I will use most of the time because it can get me in that aperture sweet spot and still hold the shutter speed.

ND16 Clip 4k Dlog Graded

ND32 Clip 4k Dlog Graded

KB

I have found the same thing. The ND32 is what I use on bright sunny days, shooting at F4.0 and 1/60 second shutter. I thought it would be an ND16 but was wrong.

 

[SteveCA]

Some issues there. Lots of (D)SLR lenses were generally sharpest 1-2 stops down from full open. As most lenses were f/4-f/5.6 thats where this came from.

As well as that the M2P has a tiny sensor with a high pixel density - the drop of sharpness over f/5.6 and in particular big decline from f/8 and narrower is due to light diffraction and is rooted in basic physics so the lens really isnt doing anything here as it cant.

In other news, people get hugely overly fixated with the 180 shutter "rule" when in reality for most types of video a significantly higher shutter speed still wont be visible in the shot.

significantly higher shutter speed are very much visible in many shots when the sun is at certain angles to the lens. It’s called prop shadows and are particularly bad at high shutter speeds.

 

[VectorTwin]

3.5 - 5.6 for photos, I do not test precisely on video. I use ND filter to adjust f stop nad shoting speed for photos 1/250 - 1/800

 

[Melor]

I come from the film days and had the same notion as you.5.6-8 was often the sweet spot.Digital lenses are much sharper out of necessity.I have an Olympus M4/3 camera and a 2.8 lens is best at about F/4

Just to test my memory, I checked the specs on a few 35mm lenses I own, these are for shooting full frame 35mm sensor / film. The specs I came about showed that the sharpest, edge to edge for my lenses ( I suppose with the exception of the drone ) were a half stop open from f8.

Good to know I can run wider open with the M2P and expect best sharpness a little open from my usual target.

Paul

 

[Flyguy95r]

I’ll throw in my 2 cents for F4 as well. I generally fly with whichever ND will allow me to shoot from EV-0 to EV +1.5 (overexposing for Log) at F2.8- F4. If an aperture ABOVE F4 is needed to get those exposures I’ll land and switch out the ND but I do feel comfortable going below them.

 

[SteveCA]

I’ll throw in my 2 cents for F4 as well. I generally fly with whichever ND will allow me to shoot from EV-0 to EV +1.5 (overexposing for Log) at F2.8- F4. If an aperture ABOVE F4 is needed to get those exposures I’ll land and switch out the ND but I do feel comfortable going below them.

I haven’t had as good luck with 2.8. I found that 5.0-5.6 was sharper than 2.8 with 4.0 being the sharpest.

 

[Prmath]

Assuming you are OK with both F2.8 and F4.0, you can get away with fewer ND filters on the M2P which is really nice. If you buy a ND4 and ND16 you also effectively have an ND8 and ND32 just by stopping down from F2.8 to F4.0 respectively. And those 4 filters (or their equivalents via aperture change) is probably all most people need.

Is it true that using Aperture priority set at .......lets use f4 as an example will cause the Shutter speed to fluctuate? According to the ambient light of course. AP mode is a control mechanism for depth of field...... low f-stop equals shallow DOF when the main subject is close to camera...... like in a portrait situation.
Professionals, please correct me if I’m Offbase