Depth of Field Understood!
Today is the vernal equinox, aka, the first day of spring!! And here in NC, we have a temperature of 43 degrees with sleet coming down as I type! The pictures I got of the sleet on our back deck inspired me to write a little blurb about Depth of Field in photography!
There are many different factors that create an amazing photograph. Of course there is the subject and how he/she/it is composed in the frame. Altering the shutter speed can make action stop or showcase the fluidity and smoothness of motion. Another facet of photography is understanding depth of field and how to use it to create a really stunning photograph.
Depth of Field (DOF) is the distance in front of and behind the subject which appears to be in focus. A photograph can be taken with a shallow DOF or a very deep DOF. The key to understanding how to use DOF creatively in a photograph is to understand the aperture and F-stop on a camera.
The aperture is something that restricts the diameter of the light path through one plane in an optical system. The aperture stop, known more commonly in the photographic world as the F-stop, is a measurement of how large or small the opening of the lens is. F-stops, depending on the lens, can range in value from as low as 1.4 all the way up to 22 and above! The backwards part of this value is that the higher the F-stop value is, the smaller the aperture, and, the smaller the aperture, the larger/deeper resulting DOF. Conversely, when the camera is set to a lower f-stop value, the lens opening is larger, and a more shallow DOF is the result.
Here are some examples showing the change in aperture and the resulting DOF:
f/8.0 = larger f-stop value = smaller aperture = larger DOF
f/2.0 = smaller f-stop value = larger aperture = shallower DOF
Notice in the second photograph, with an f-stop of 2.0, how blurry the background and foreground are, and how small the area is that is in focus as compared to the first photograph. This is because of changing the aperture which changes the DOF in the image.
Changing aperture size can make such a difference in the creativity of a photograph!!
There are many different factors that create an amazing photograph. Of course there is the subject and how he/she/it is composed in the frame. Altering the shutter speed can make action stop or showcase the fluidity and smoothness of motion. Another facet of photography is understanding depth of field and how to use it to create a really stunning photograph.
Depth of Field (DOF) is the distance in front of and behind the subject which appears to be in focus. A photograph can be taken with a shallow DOF or a very deep DOF. The key to understanding how to use DOF creatively in a photograph is to understand the aperture and F-stop on a camera.
The aperture is something that restricts the diameter of the light path through one plane in an optical system. The aperture stop, known more commonly in the photographic world as the F-stop, is a measurement of how large or small the opening of the lens is. F-stops, depending on the lens, can range in value from as low as 1.4 all the way up to 22 and above! The backwards part of this value is that the higher the F-stop value is, the smaller the aperture, and, the smaller the aperture, the larger/deeper resulting DOF. Conversely, when the camera is set to a lower f-stop value, the lens opening is larger, and a more shallow DOF is the result.
Here are some examples showing the change in aperture and the resulting DOF:
f/8.0 = larger f-stop value = smaller aperture = larger DOF
f/2.0 = smaller f-stop value = larger aperture = shallower DOF
Notice in the second photograph, with an f-stop of 2.0, how blurry the background and foreground are, and how small the area is that is in focus as compared to the first photograph. This is because of changing the aperture which changes the DOF in the image.
Changing aperture size can make such a difference in the creativity of a photograph!!
posted by Cat at 3:47 PM
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