The short answer is yes.
There's a quick description of why at *Robert Monaghan's web site:
http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/diffraction.html
*
Lon Williamson wrote:
Read any book about the technical aspects
of photography, and you'll run across
diffraction limiting, which is usually
supposed to kick in at an F stop of 16 or
22 and be noticable by 32.
Now compare the absolute size of, say,
a 20mm prime stopped down to f22 and a 100mm
prime at f22. Your eyeballs tell you the 20mm
aperature hole is a lot smaller than the 100 hole,
but the 100 hole is farther from the film plane.
Question: Is it the absolute diameter of the aperature,
or some formula taking into account diameter _and_
distance from the film that causes diffraction limiting?
In other words, does diffraction limiting affect a 20mm
lens set at f22 _MORE_ than a 100mm set at f22? I asked
a physicist friend about this one time, and he started
talking like a politician. In other words, to put it
bluntly, he bullshitted me rather than admiting he didn't know
and couldn't calculate a reasoned answer.
-Lon
