f stops I know and love

Granted, f2.8 may sound very dull to the un-initiated, but translated into visual terms it produces a fine field of focus, a clarity that is so simple, so striking , that however subtle the image, the eye cannot help but be lured by its sheer magic.

For the un-enlightened, f2.8 is a lens aperture that allows a large amount of light through to the shutter, letting the lens do the focusing, rather than the aperture or ‘hole’ (as in ‘pin hole’ camera, which relies soley on the small hole, or apeture, to focus the beam of light)

Such things as the ‘blur tool’ have all but murdered f2.8, but I know when it’s being faked. Sometimes subtly, sometime so crassly and overtly that it makes me balk, like watching a politician spin an expedient lie on prime time TV.

Why the passion? To me, f2.8 is sacred. The way in which the blur falls away from the subject, ever increasingly, to a point where the light wraps around the strong lines in the distance, reducing them to a faint, muted candyfloss on which the subject floats.

Magic...