That picture above is, believe it or not, or a pepper, taken at F240 with an exposure time of between 4 and 6 hours!

The photo was taken by a photographer called Edward Weston, who is considered to be on of the most influential photographers of the 20th Century. One of his most famous works titled Pepper No. 30 is the black and white photo you see above, and that photo was shot a F240 with an exposure time of between 4 and 6 hours.

Why did he do this? Well, Edward ran into problems shooting still life photos with his view cameras, as many of us know, the closer you get to a subject with your view camera the narrower the depth of field is. To capture this relatively small vegetable properly, Edward was going to need an exceptionally small aperture to create the depth of field he required

So, Edward built his own stops for his lenses, eventually settling on the F240 aperture, which essentially turned the camera into a pinhole camera and took the photo.

Here’s a video tour of Westons home

Weston lived in a rickety old house, and it was said that he would setup the shot and if a lorry or car drove past it would shake the house and ruin the exposure!