Golden Gardens Pt. II

I headed back to Golden Gardens to test my theory of diffraction and shoot using a maximum aperture of f16. It was sunset so I was able to use a more open aperture (compared to the last time) while maintaining a longer shutter speed, which I had wanted previously. The results are definitely noticeable. An aperture setting anywhere from f12 to f16 produces crisp images without the 'fuzz' caused by the diffraction. There was no wind today, which allowed the water to be extremely calm, but the water lacked the same movement as the other day, but that was alright as it gave way to a very relaxing atmosphere. Everything was great until a dog walked up to me, which I normally would welcome, but the continued to step multiple times on all of my stuff and kick sand throughout almost everything. I managed to clean up the majority of it, but I was not very happy with that dog at the time....stupid dog....

Diffraction

I recently went out to Golden Gardens to see if I could get away from my fuzzy photos from last week...and I didn't. The majority of photographs looked great on the tiny LCD screen, but once retrieved and examined on a larger scale, the results were the same...fuzzy, slightly out of focus images. After a bit of research I discovered that the main source of my problems were due to diffraction. From what I understand, diffraction occurs when the aperture of a camera's lens becomes too small, forcing the light rays to 'act funny' once they enter the lens. This, in turn, de-focuses the image. Each lens has it's own 'perfect' aperture setting, and mine seems to be around the f11 to f16 range for the Sigma 10-20 (the website www.slrgear.com is great for determining when your image will start to de-focus). I was definitely way too far away from perfect for these couple of shots, as I cranked the aperture all the way down to f29 in order to minimize the light and get a roughly 1 second long exposure (with an ND6 filter). So for the next time I will shoot up to a max of around f16 and then compare results. Please share your ideas and critiques with me, thanks!