4th of July and Narrow Depth-of-Field

We got up this morning and walked down to the beach for coffee and a muffin. There was a heavy marine layer, so it was cool to the runners and walkers.

This was shot with my wife's Nikon Coolpix P5000 point and shoot, on program mode. I fired the built-in flash through a Gary Fong Delta Diffuser. I really didn't need the flash, but had it turned on from some previous shots, where I wanted some fill, because of the overcast.

I love the P5000. Actually, I'm a big fan of P&S cameras for casual use. There was no way I was going to carry a DSLR and lens on an early morning walk, but the P&S just goes into a pocket. I'll paraphrase, but someone once said that the best camera is the one you have with you when the image appears. This was about 7AM, and getting myself to the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) was hard enough, without carrying a heavy camera.

About mid-morning, I decided to shoot some of the local parade. I was mainly interested in shooting narrow depth-of-field portraits of participants, as well as viewers alone the parade route.

I love to have the image jump off the blurred background. For those who don't know, long focal lengths and wide apertures are the key to limited depth-of-field photos.

In most of the above, I shot at f:2.8 and near 200mm. The lens was a borrowed 80-200 -- non-VR. On a few shots, I closed to about f:11. I put the camera on Aperture priority, because I wanted to maintain the wide aperture, to guarantee the narrow DOF. The sky was nice and sunny, by about 10AM, so I knew that my shutter speeds would be very fast. I put the camera, a Nikon D70s, on a monopod. The monopod was not needed to steady the camera. It's just that I knew I'd be standing along the street for a couple hours, and the camera and lens would be getting heavy.

When you click on the image, bellow, you'll be taken to a Picasa Album. There are a couple photos of helicopters and jets flying by. You will probably notice some spots on the image. That's an indicator of a dirty sensor, so cleaning it will be my next project.

Happy 4th of July!!

4th of July, 2008

Depth-of-Field

The depth of field (DOF) is the distance in front of and behind the subject that appears to be in sharp focus.

Have you ever wondered how professional photographers make their subjects stand out from the surroundings? While you can’t do this with a fixed focal length camera, you can do it with most consumer cameras, and will all SLRs (single lens reflex cameras – those with interchangeable lenses), if you have the right lenses.

For example, a flower may stand out against a blurred background, or a small insect is set against a blurred leaf. Perhaps, the most striking example is when a person seems to be almost detached from the background – they pop out of the page. Well, it’s not difficult to achieve this effect.

The trick is to use selective focus.

With this technique, we can choose one part of the image to be sharp and in focus, while the rest of the image is kept out of focus. It's very useful in macro and close-up photography.

So how do you achieve selective focus? Here are some tips.

Aperture Size

For selective focus, try choosing your widest f-stops (i.e. aperture size), such as f/2.8 or f/4. Couple this with a fast shutter speed to ensure enough light is present in the photo.

Focal Length

A good tip is to zoom (remember to only use the optical zoom –- not the digital zoom feature, if your camera has that option -- in as much as possible, or choose a telephoto lens. The longer the lens, the less depth-of-field it has -- conversely, the wider angle, the more DOF.

Angle to Subject

This tip takes a bit of practice, but is very effective at times. Choose an angle to the subject that causes background and foreground elements to be farther from the focused subject. This causes them to be strikingly out of focus.

Note that it is in fact possible to achieve the selective focus effect using image editing programs. You can simply select one part of the photo, keep it sharp and then blur the rest. However, if shoot the image with selective focus because the effect always looks more natural.

We will talk about achieving selective focus, with software, in another post.

Photography Tutorial - Depth of Field

This is a nice sample of what you can achieve with different depths-of-field.