Brian Auer recently posted a poll on his blog, asking what his readers’ favorite f-number is. This seems like an odd question to me, at least on its face.  Perhaps, to explain: there is no such a thing as an absolute “favorite f-stop” in my book.  There are preferred f-stops for specific photographs, but that’s as far as it goes.

So as I thought about it, I came up with several favorit f/stops:

• f/1.4: for indoor shots, intimate shots, some portraits.
• f/2: for portraits on prime lenses.  Uncontrolled lighting, or no studio lighting.
• f/2.8: general-purpose portraits (studio & non-studio).  Any shot where I want the subject to stand out from the background.
• f/8: the “carry around” setting. When I’m not shooting.
• f/16: general purpose landscapes.  f/16 is a guideline, not an absolute.
• f/22 & higher: most of my landscapes these days.  This is because I’m trying to slow down the shutter, not for sharpness (most of my lenses are sharper at f/16)

The most used f/stop?  f/8.  As noted a while ago, leaving the camera at f/8 (and ISO 400, in my case) tends to leave me in a situation where I’m about 1/2 a second from a photo if the camera is out.  Since a lot of my photos are spur-of-the-moment of a moving object (ahem, 4-year-old), this is where most shots are taken these days.