Basics Style Concept Workshop

Copyright © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis. Visit the original article at http://yorgonestoridis.com/yorgo-nestoridis-media/digital-photography-ycademy-9/.

The Magic of Depth of Field

At the beginning, many photographers struggle with the concept of aperture and depth of field. I remember back in the 60ies when my dad ciselled the principles into my brain. He was shooting with a good old Leica I loved for all the buttons and little wheels it featured for tons of settings.

I could not imagine what they were good for: but they looked god for sure and that was a good enough reason to fetch my interest.

By the way, have you ever noticed how “look-focused” photographers are? And the look of their camera? It’s part of the over all estethics photographers are in search of and  attached to, I guess.

Of course it is sexier to have your portrait taken in an Indiana Jones Look (or the Marlboro Man minus the smell of the sweating horse and the cow dung…) holding a big cam with a mega lens in front, than Indiana with an iPhone, huh.

Back to the depth of field. I was exercising on flowers in the garden 50 years ago and the game went as follows.

Exercise 1

1. Move as close as you can (don’t use Macro to start with)  to the object you want to take a picture of and set your lens to the widest aperture (that’s the smallers f/number!). In my case it was f/2.8 at that time). If you do this with your digital camera, the cam will automatically select the appropriate shutter speed.

2. Repeat the exercise with f/5.6, f/8, f/11 and f/22.

3. You have now 5 pictures of the same flower with a background (and maybe foreground) of the surrounding flowers. However your pictures are different from each other and the difference is in the depth of field.

Conclusion: The narrower the aperture, the wider the depth of field! This is the real issue here, meaning, the smaller the opening of the lens’s diaphragm (high f/number), the longer the cam will expose the sensor(film) to the light inflow and the sharper your picture gets along the depth (z-) axes.

The wider the aperture (small f/number) the narrower the depth of field (and the faster the shutter speed) and you end up with these beautifully blurred back and or foregrounds. Your digital camera’s auto-focus, focused on the flower you want to feature, will automatically make sure that your depth of field is optimized for the flower.

Exercise 2

Do the same exercise again by zooming out or moving away from the object you are taking the picture of. Shoot from a distance of about 1 meter to 1.5 meters (4-5 feet). Again you will end up with a series of pictures.

You will find: the further you move away from the flower, the wider the depth of field will get! This is the second important rule.

Put simply: if you want a sharp picture throughout the whole depth, increase the distance and use higher f/numbers. If on the other hand you wish a picture where the focused object is sharp and the background and or the foreground are blurred, then move closer and decrease the f/number (wider aperture or diaphragm of the lens is wider open, which triggers a faster shutter speed).

Conclusion 1

This exercise should help you to improve on your Macro shots and Portraits. The effect is function of depth of field: to limit the depth of field use a wider aperture (smaller f/number) and move closer; the background will be less in focus and you get the desired blur-effect.

Conclusion 2

This is probably the most important single concept which will bring you ahead of the masses. I guess 99% or more of all camera users are not aware of this concept and will continue to shoot happily their flat shots.

Conclusion 3

The best way to achieve the effect is by using your camera’s manual settings (priority on Aperture A-mode). If your cam does not allow for Aperture priority, then you still have the option to pull your picture through Lightroom of Photoshop and to manipulate the background out of focus … but why going that route if your cam can deliver a better quality original?

It’s obvious that skilled Photoshop users are absolutely capable to fake the blur effect, but believe me: if you want it well done, it takes time, loads of it and you have the bitter taste in your mouth of someone who just became aware that he re-invented the wheel. Imagine: the cam does in a fraction of a second (literally) what may cost you hours in Photoshop.

The Camera and Photoshop or Lightroom

No, I am not against Photo Editing Programs at all. Photoshop is a great tool and can do things the camera cannot do; on the other hand the camera is a great tool as well and it can do certain things better than Photoshop. So, let’s use each tool for what it is made and you cumulate the quality of the cam’s work with the quality of PS.

The best results in Photoshop are achieved with a great picture at the base: the more time you spend to make your picture great, the less time you will spend in Photoshop and the better your image data.

Try this over the week-end and come back with some nice, more or less blurred pictures! Stuff them into a new Gallery on Your Semiomantics Evolution site to share your results. I am looking forward to it.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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