Wide Open
Every so often, I come across a video explaining what professional photographers should never do. Shooting wide open is one of the recurring offenses.
There is usually some useful advice behind it. A very shallow depth of field can leave too little of a face in focus. An eye may be perfectly sharp while the other, slightly further from the camera, is already soft. I know the problem well. In my portrait work, I rejected enough photographs for precisely that reason, even when I had stopped down to f/2 or f/2.5. I wanted more of the face to remain sharp, so I stopped down further.
What I find harder to follow is the next step: the suggestion that someone who chooses otherwise is revealing a lack of professional judgement. A practical warning becomes a verdict on the photographer.
During a recent visit to the maritime museum in Douarnenez, I photographed a series of boats and their details with my 50 mm at f/1.2. What appealed to me was the way the sharp areas gradually gave way to blur, alongside the changes in the raking light. The shapes remained present, but some of their details softened as they receded.
Then I began to doubt what I was doing. Was there enough in focus? Would the photographs still make sense on a larger screen, or would I find a small patch of sharpness surrounded by an indistinct mass?
I photographed some of the same scenes again at f/8.
Looking through the files afterwards, I preferred the versions made at f/1.2. The additional detail at f/8 made the boats easier to inspect, but the photographs had lost something I had enjoyed. The light still moved across the surfaces. The gradual passage out of focus no longer accompanied it in the same way.
Get Philippe Triconnet’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
That did not make every photograph at f/1.2 successful. In one image, the point of focus sat inside a boat, while the bench and oars above it were too soft. There were lovely colours, but at f/1.2 I struggled to read the arrangement of the objects. At f/8, the arrangement was clear, but the photograph had lost its charm. I kept neither version.
That afternoon gave me no reason to tell everyone to shoot wide open, and no reason to tell them to stop.
I enjoy what these lenses can do at their widest aperture. That pleasure does not disappear because I also know their limitations. Sometimes I need both eyes sharp. Sometimes the photograph benefits from letting much of the subject slip gradually out of focus. Sometimes I get the balance wrong.
An experienced photographer can help me understand why an image failed. They might notice where I placed the focus, suggest a different distance, or explain what closing the aperture would change. I welcome that kind of discussion. It gives me something to look at and something to try.
Calling a choice unprofessional closes that discussion remarkably quickly. Before we have looked at the photograph, we have already been told what to think of the person who made it.
A way of working can make perfect sense for one photographer. That alone does not explain why someone choosing another aperture should be judged unprofessional.
I have no difficulty explaining why I close my aperture for certain portraits. I also have photographs from Douarnenez that I prefer at f/1.2, after making the comparison for myself.
I would rather look at what happened in those photographs than ask whether the aperture was respectable.
Originally published at https://journal.philippetriconnet.com on October 25, 2026.
