lens – Shuling Yong

Watching 2006 TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim share her wish for the world with such passion sends goosebumps down my spine. It’s the 2nd time I’ve seen this video and I still feel moved.

Was super excited that she was scheduled to speak at Northwestern tonight about Speaking With a Lens. I found her film Control Room remarkable and was really looking forward to meeting her. Very bummed out that the Iceland Volcano ash cloud has prevented her from flying to the US. McSA, I really hope you’ll find a way to reschedule this.

**Update** They did reschedule it! Woohoo! Just got back from the event where Jehane so kindly agreed to be interviewed for the next episode of Media Impact Spotlight! Look out for it soon! Thank you, Jehane for a wonderful talk. It clearly inspired many in the room. And thank you, McSA, for organizing this. Looking forward to more great events in future. :)

May 18, 2010May 25, 2010 by yongshuling Categories: Film Events, Social ChangeTags: control room, film, iceland, Jehane Noujaim, lens, mcsa, northwestern, Social Change, TED Leave a comment

3058442788_10eab80174 — Picture by DeusXFlorida

Not every f-stop on your lens churns out equally sharp and well-defined images. At least, that’s what I learned from John Sevigny’s article. Highlights below:

“A photograph shot at 1.7 relies on nearly all the glass in the lens, and any surface or engineering imperfections are going to be revealed with a wide-opened aperture. For the same reasons, I can probably forget about the idea of shooting at 2.8 if I’m looking for maximum sharpness and resolution.”

“On the other end, f16, the smallest aperture, is useless at 35mm or for DSLRs. Diffraction, a kind of distortion that happens when light passes through small holes, destroys images at f16. You might rule out using f11 for the same reason.”

“Don’t know the best aperture of your 35mm camera? Fall back on the old rule my father taught me back in the 1970s: the optimum aperture for sharpness and detail is about two stops away from wide opened. That is, on a lens with a maximum aperture of 2.8, you’ll probably get the best results at 5.6.”

Timely and useful advice. Matt and I were just involved in a discussion about this over the weekend while we were shooting State of the Apartment on the Canon 5D Mark II. Now we know better. :)

Read the full article here.

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