Improving Optical Performance - Nikon D800 Technical Manual

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3. Improving Optical Performance

3. Improving Optical Performance
Stopping down the aperture increases depth of fi eld, mak-
ing both the foreground and background sharper. Stop the
aperture down too far, however, and diff raction will actually
cause the image to be less defi ned. The eff ects of diff raction
are partly infl uenced by the size of the pixels on the camera's
image sensor, but with the high resolution off ered by the
D800/D800E, the eff ects generally become noticeable at
around f/11. When greater depth of fi eld is needed, don't im-
mediately apply the minimum aperture; instead, determine
the aperture setting that off ers the best balance between
sharpness and depth of fi eld. The sample images on this page
show how defi nition in the metal grating is lost when an ap-
erture smaller than f/11 is used.
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