Depth of focus… open or closed?

I much prefer shooting wide open with my lens, meaning if the lens opens up to f1.2 (my fav indoor lens the Canon 50L f1.2) or 2.8 (which are my other 3 lens) I will shoot wide. This provides a gorgeous bokeh (blurry area) to my photo.

There are times that shooting with a more closed down aperture is more desirable, such as shooting landscape shots or when in the middle of the summer on a beach – the sunny 16 rule is perfect for this!

Here are a couple examples I took of closed down vs shooting wide open.

These photos are in the wet lands behind our property, it is gorgeous with the vast variety of not only plant life, trees and wildlife down there. It does get quite wet about 20 feet past our property line so I most certainly had to use the zoom on my Canon 24-70 f2.8L lens.

Then I opened up the aperture and shot this,

In this example I personally prefer the wide open shot, it is more appealing to me having some areas of the photo blurred with the plant life that I focused on standing out. This is also something that as a photographer you begin to find your groove as you find your own style. The majority of my photography is shot wide open, this brings out the creativity in me and the more natural shots. Shooting landscape for me is somewhat of a treat as its not something that deeply interests me, but when the creative juices begin flowing its always fun!