Stop Shooting Wide Open: Why F/1.8 Isn't Always the Answer

9/02/2025 ISO 1200 Magazine 1 Comments

Getting a beautiful, blurred background—what we call bokeh—is a goal for many photographers. The go-to solution is often a fast lens and a wide-open aperture like f/1.8. But here's a secret: that's only half the story. To truly master creative control over your images, you need to look beyond a single number.

Your ability to create a blurry background depends on three things: your aperture, the distance between you and your subject, and the distance between your subject and the background.

By physically moving closer to your subject and ensuring they're well separated from the background, you can create stunning bokeh even at narrower apertures like f/4 or f/5.6.

This simple technique gives you more flexibility and control, allowing you to get the look you want without always being limited to the shallowest depth of field.

Depth of Field: A Creative Choice

Think of depth of field as the slice of your image that is in sharp focus. A wide aperture (f/1.8) gives you a paper-thin slice, great for isolating a subject, but with little room for error. If your focus is off even slightly, your main subject might be blurry.

A narrower aperture (f/8), on the other hand, gives you a wider plane of focus, making it easier to nail the shot, especially when photographing moving subjects or groups of people. It’s a deliberate choice based on what your image needs.

When to Stop Down

Shooting wide open isn't always the best choice. Here are a few times when a narrower aperture is the way to go:

For Sharper Images: Many lenses, especially budget-friendly ones, are at their sharpest when you close down the aperture a bit (e.g., to f/2.8 or f/4). This often leads to better overall image quality.
To Tell a Story: When the background is important to the context of your photo—like a portrait in front of a city skyline—a narrower aperture (f/5.6 or f/8) keeps more of the scene in focus, telling a more complete story.
For Landscapes and Architecture: When you need everything from the foreground to the horizon to be sharp, a narrow aperture is essential. You’ll get crisp details from corner to corner.

Creativity with f/8

Low light doesn't have to mean shooting wide open. With a tripod, you can use a narrow aperture like f/8 and a slow shutter speed to create stunning long-exposure shots. This technique turns streetlights into beautiful starbursts and cars into trails of light, adding a magical, ethereal quality to your night photography.

Ultimately, your aperture is a tool, not a rule. By understanding how it works with distance and depth of field, you can move past common assumptions and make more intentional, creative choices that will elevate your photography.

Images and video via Jason Vong