Using Depth of Field
27th May
Depth of field is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to the “out-of-focus-background” look that’s very popular when shooting portraits. That is half-correct because it refers only to shallow depth of field.
Going to the other extreme and getting the flowers, huts and mountains (and people too) sharply focused in a landscape photo requires deep depth of field. That means a sharp foreground and background as well.
Depth of field is controlled by 3 factors, the most common being the aperture setting. The aperture is usually taught in basic photography classes as the main factor that affects how much depth of field there is in your photo.
A big aperture (which means a small F number like F1.4 or F2.8) will give you shallow depth of field, while a small aperture (which means a big F number like F11 or F16) will give you a deep depth of field.
This works well on SLR and DSLR cameras, but on point-and-shoot compact digital cameras, the differences are difficult to spot. This is because point-and-shoot compact digicams are built differently and inherently come with deep depth of field, even at an F2.8 aperture setting which is common in point-and-shoot cameras. That means it’s pretty hard to get the shallow depth of field effect on point-and-shoot cameras, unless it has a longer zoom range (like 10x), which brings us to the next factor in controlling depth of field.
Your lens focal length is the next factor. Longer lenses (telephoto lenses) like a 200mm lens will give you shallow depth of field, while wide angle lenses like a 10mm lens will give you plenty of depth of field.
The third factor is distance to subject. Did you know that if you moved in closer to your subject, your depth of field will also be decreased, ie. a shallow depth of field? This works well if you’re using a point-and-shoot, and are trying to get that “out-of-focus-background” look.
This photo above was taken with an F2.8 aperture setting, and focused very close, with a wide angle lens.
The photo above used a wide angle lens with a small aperture (F11), which leads to a slower shutter speed. I will write about shutter speeds in an upcoming article.
Stay tuned!
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