exposure dilemma

[Hank]

[font color=\'#000000\']General wisdom (and often testing) infer that the middle-range of apertures gives the best edge-to-edge sharpness with most lenses.  While that may have been the foundation for the person's recommendation, it's completely specious for portraiture, and even for some landscapes.  After all, the trade-off is with shutter speed and film speed, and there are simply too many situations in which those factors may be more important than aperture.  

Shoot the images the way you want.  After all, it's your film, your lens, and your camera, and you want the images to turn out to your specifications rather than those of another "expert."  The person who made the recommendation should be satisfied with his own equipment and quit messing with yours.[/font]

[virgilm]

[font color=\'#000000\']As my Seagull opens to 3,5 I thought I should use its maximum aperture when shooting portraits or still lives but I was advised to use to expose at f8 or f11 to have a 'better picture'. Why is that? Why should I use that time for a photo where I don't need depth of field at all? What about those having very luminous lenses opening to 1:8, 1:7 etc? Should they use also the f8? [/font]

[neil]

[font color=\'#000000\']Unless you're very confident of your focusing accuracy I'd use a stop down from wide open.  Plenty short, but still gives you a hair's bredth of leway.[/font]