Limited. Aperture range

K

Kathymay

Messages
26
Edit My Images
Yes
I have just bought a fuji finepix s2950, my first bridge camera. Only ever used compact up to now. It seems to have only four aperture options ; two at wide angle and two at telephoto. Can this be correct? And do you think I will be limiting myself as to the quality of photos I can expect to achieve?
Thanks.
As you can probably tell - this is all very new to me. I'd be grateful for advice.
 
Welcome to the forum kathy, have moved to talk equipment section for you :)
 
As a guess as I haven't used one there might be some manual overrided settings in there.

Mainly they used to be for zoom and were just point n shoot esk. I think they might have evolved a bit now and should be able to use a manual settings.

Have you had a browse through the manual, see if there is a section on focusing, aperture etc... usualy the manual covers this and corresponding menu settings/options you can change.
 
The limited range of aperture options does make sense. It's because the real focal length of your lens (5-90mm) is quite short in the great scheme of things, which means your DOF is pretty generous, relative to a DSLR, at even the brightest apertures offered by the lens, and the small sensor and high pixel count mean that stopping down the lens further will cause IQ to degrade quite quickly through diffraction. Therefore I suspect your aperture options will vary by about 1 stop, because to offer more than that would not be helpful.

Basically you will have very little control over DOF, and the variable aperture will be a token nod to giving you a little flexibility with exposure. To make it more meaningful to offer more aperture options you would really need the lens to be capable of shooting at something like f/1.0 rather than f/3.1-f/6.4. It makes little sense, with your sensor, to stop down by more than 1 stop beyond those values. In fact, assuming that at the long end your options are either f/6.4 or f/13, I'd say that f/13 is stretching things farther than ideal. Probably f/9 would be ample.

Just to put that into perspective, I have lenses covering from 16mm to 200mm at a constant f/2.8 and my sensor size means I can stop down to f/16 with no visible harm to IQ at normal print sizes. That means a 5 stop range (I could go one more stop if need be) of control with aperture, and selectable in 1/3 stop increments. For my gear that all makes perfect sense. On a bridge camera such as yours you just couldn't get 5 stops of useful range given the fastest apertures offered by the lens. At the long end adding 5 stops to f/6.4 would take you to about f/36, which would look like garbage.
 
Last edited:
Can you explain what you mean Kathy? when you say 2 options for aperture where do you get that from? Your not refering the the minimum and maxiimum for wide and tele are you? the camera may set apertures in between those on auto.
 
Thanks for the replies!
In the manual the camera spec says F3.1 and F6.4 wide angle and F5.6 and F11 telephoto. Am I right in thinking it's just these 4 presets or is it the whole range inbetween( although I can't seem to find any way of changing the aperture other than to one of those I've mentioned. Will consider changing this camera for one with wider options. This one has a lot of automatic functions but I would like to have a bit more control over settings once I become more familiar.
Grateful for opinions.
 
As Wayne has suggested the camera will set apertures between 3.1 and 6.4, and 5.6 and 11.

Those numbers refer to the range of aperture available at wide angle and telephoto. They are not the only ones available.

Dave
 
The aperture will probably change as you zoom, covering the full range from f/3.1 at the wide end to f/6.4 at the long end. You will not have any ability to pick which of those intermediate values is chosen. I imagine the only choice you will have is whether to use the "wide aperture" range from f/3.1 to 6/6.4 or the "narrow aperture" range from f/5.6 to f/11.
 
Thanks for replies- zooming does indeed work! Thanks just couldn't figure it. Do other cameras have option to choose exact aperture? Any recommendations for a good starter DSLR? I have fuji finepix bridge camera but may want to upgrade soon.
Thanks
 
Any DSLR will give you vastly more control of your choice of aperture. It will also give you more control over DOF altogether. Cheaper lenses might have an aperture that changes as you zoom, at the brightest aperture settings, but once you stop down a bit, usually to f/5.6, you can maintain that aperture no matter what zoom setting you pick. More expensive lenses will hold a constant aperture regardless of the focal length selected, giving you absolute control over the exposure and everything else.

e.g. suppose you buy an entry level DSLR with a kit zoom lens. The lens will probably have a focal length range of 18-55 and the brightest aperture the lens can offer will range from f/3.5 to f/5.6 as you zoom the lens. If you select f/5.6 (or anything narrower than f/5.6 (including f/6.3, f/7.1, f/8, f/9, f/10, f/11, f/13, f/14, f/16, f/18, f/20, f/22) as your chosen aperture then the lens will remain at that aperture over its entire zoom range.

Many of my more expensive zoom lenses have a max aperture of f/2.8 throughout the entire zoom range, and they will all stop down to at least f/22 in 1/3 stop increments. Zooming the lens will not change the aperture value at all.

Such lenses make shooting with manual exposure far easier and more convenient, because once you have your exposure set you are free to zoom and adjust your composition without the fear that your exposure will change.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top