Saturday, March 17, 2007

Lens, focus, aperture and its connection to depth of field

Here is a "no beating around the bush tip" on depth of field.

Choosing the right depth of field techniques to your shot can make or break a photo, it can either make a landscape or portrait look good or crappy. here are 2 tips that is practical and easy to ff.

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A shallow depth of field (selective focus)effect is normally best used with portraits

1. If you want a SHALLOW DEPTH OF FIELD FOR A PORTRAIT SHOT, use a lens with a focal length of 200m or up, set your aperture to around f/2.8 and ask the subject to pose away from the background, maybe 20 steps away. This should give you a blurred background a nice and professional photo should come out.


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Extensive depth of field is when all the images from foreground to background are sharp. This is best use for landscape photography.

2. If you want all the images in the photo to be SHARP use a wide angle lens. The range could be 16mm to 24mm (lens with these focal lengths produce extensive or great depth of field) and put the aperture to the smallest opening (such as f/16 or f/22), use also the scale marking on the lens next to the aperture ring to estimate the depth of field(check your manual on reading the scale) . For those without markings on lens, check the camera manual for estimating depth of field.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jeff...This Diego (DPP forum). Which one has a better "bokeh" or shallow DOF. A 50 mm f 1.8 or a telephoto lens of 200 mm and above? thanks

Jeff Cua said...

HI Diego! good question.
Your question is very subjective, as they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
as far as my knowledge is concerned, No bokeh is more beautiful than the other, a bokeh is a bokeh.. as long as it serves its purpose. A portrait with bokeh is always amazing to look at and very professional looking.

There are bokehs that are circular and others are polygonal, that is due to the shape of your aperture opening. IT is then now your decision wether you like circular or polygonal. If you ask me i like polygonal.

Hopefully i helped you in your choice of bokeh

jeff