Street photography tip: Keep everything sharp with a small aperture

Wednesday 9 April 2025, 20:20 by Michiel Heijmans | 2,950 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

If you want to photograph a scene with something happening in different layers of your photo, it is best to use a smaller aperture. Using a smaller aperture gives you greater depth of field. This is the area from your camera in which objects are shown sharply.

Rotterdam - f/8.0, 1/125s, 200 ISO @ 35mm
With this small aperture, for example f/8 or f/11, you miss far fewer details in your photo. A photo of a packed outdoor café, or a busy market, is only properly captured this way. I therefore mainly use a small aperture for wide shots, when I really want everything to be sharp.

A small aperture also means that less light gets through. So keep an eye on your ISO setting if you have not set AUTO ISO, and make sure your shutter speed does not drop too low, otherwise you will still end up with a blurry photo!

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