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We used the same Nikon D800 and Nikkor 60mm lens but instead of a ring flash we backlit the currency with a strip box fitted to a Profoto Air 1000. Lee and I decided to see how much detail we could resolve in a $50 bill.

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Here are the resulting photos (click each image to view full res).Īfter reviewing the results and seeing first hand how super small apertures can decrease sharpness, I decided to test something more static and remove as many variables as possible such as camera and subject movement and lens focusing distances.

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I would have loved to have taken test shots with an even wider aperture like F8 but the ringflash was too powerful at the lowest setting for anything below f22 at ISO 100. The resulting 36 megapixel images revealed that stopping down the macro lens past f22 resulted in a lack of sharpness. We setup an Alien Bee R800 Ringflash and took a few photographs at different apertures. So what does this all mean for your photography, and how does diffraction make images soft? I recently did a few tests with a Nikon D800 and a Nikkor 60mm lens to see exactly what the real world effects of diffraction were on macro photography. Here is a simple diagram that shows how light particles hit your camera's digital sensor when going through large apertures and smaller apertures. Diffraction can also occur in your DSLR camera which can become a major problem and cause your images to lose their sharpness. Most of us are familiar with light diffraction patterns found on the backs of CDs, in water molecules in the air, or on spider webs when looked at the right angle. This interference is called diffraction.ĭiffraction in simple terms is a phenomena that occurs with light when it interacts with an obstacle. But something strange happens when light passes through a tiny hole such as a small camera aperture: it bends and interferes with itself. When light travels through your camera's lens and through a large aperture, light doesn't bend or disperse all that much.

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When described as a wave, light usually travels in a straight line but can also bend when passing through or around objects. One thing that always blew my mind in science class was when my professors told me light can act both as a particle and as a wave (quantum physics was never my strong suit).

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