f:8 And Reporting For Duty

The phrase " f:8 and be there " was one often quoted to me as the formula for success in event photography. I think it was good advice in many situations where a preset camera and a lively eye were the only chance to get an image - the occasions where you couldn't predict when the action was going to happen nor where it was going to. These were days when you were going to have to get the job done in 12, 24, or 36 shots. Of course it was also the days of a glass flash bulb in a circular reflector and a focus locked at 12 feet, so the formula was easy to remember - it was goosing the film later in the darkroom that took the finesse. Well, now we can goose the ISO beforehand, let the automatic focus decide what we are doing, and reconstruct reality pixel by pixel with a Wacom tablet...we still have to be there, but. All of which means little when the there is our own studio and the subject needs a great deal more depth of field than can be provided by f:8. Then the aperture ring becomes the vital control...and if the camera maker has been forced to end the game at f:8 it can be awkward. The camera makers can get away with this by juggling the ISO and shutter speeds - they can be as high as 1/4000 in some cameras and a step higher in others - and the picture box can cope with dreadfully high light levels outside. Inside, the modern shutter controls can spread out the opening time to 30 seconds - that will deal with a certain amount of no-light. But if you need DOF, you are still stuck at f:8 The small sensor of the Sony DSC-HX400V ( 1/2.3 in. ) and the shortest focal length of the Vario-Sonnar ( 4.3mm! ) mean that if you need the field of view of a 24mm lens on 35mm film format you are okay...but as the focal length creeps up, you start to run out of sharpness. To the great credit of the camera it does focus pretty closely in the middle ranges,so a workable compromise can be reached. I do not blame the makers all that much, considering the extreme range of the zoom lens - the final reach is 215 mm, which is a 35mm film equivalent of 1200 mm. It made the drone and bird photos that you saw a few days ago possible. It's the small end of the thing that cannot close down more. Still, as the shot of the Bofors pit shows, there is acceptable DOF if you choose your focus point. The Vario-Sonnar has a switch on the left hand side that allows you to focus manually and an enlarged view is transmitted to the LCD screen while you do this. Don't use the EVF as it is too small to help. You can also see what happens when the inbuilt flash is raised and triggered - a night scene ensues. All in all, not a studio camera , but better in some respects than a recent mirror-less one that was tried. Much less noise in the high ISO shots.