![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.scrapkitchen.com\/SSDBlog\/image1.jpg\" "\\"Shallow")
<\/p>\nHello everyone, this is Susan posting today.\u00a0 In addition to being a scrapbooking designer, I am also a photographer and I would like to talk about how controlling depth of field can improve your photography.\u00a0 For those that are not familiar with the term Depth of Field (DOF), it is define by Wikipedia as, \u201cdistance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why is DOF important to creating interesting photographs?\u00a0 Shallow DOF can focus the viewer\u2019s attention on the important subjects of a photograph.\u00a0 Have you ever taken a photograph and it seemed uninteresting and cluttered?\u00a0 Everything is in focus, including objects in the photograph that are boring or even unappealing.<\/p>\n
How do we control DOF?\u00a0 Well there are a couple ways to control DOF, the most obvious being the lens\u2019 aperture diameter, also known as the f-stop.\u00a0 The lower the F-stop number, the more shallow depth of field you will have in your photos.<\/p>\n
Here is an example of very shallow DOF:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This photograph was shot at F1.8, which is one of the lowest apertures possible.\u00a0 Notice how the subject is in focus, but everything in front of and behind him is blurred.\u00a0 This draws the viewer\u2019s attention to the subject.\u00a0 Because of the blur, you cannot see the details of the ground or anything else in the background, thereby ensuring the background would be blurred.<\/p>\n
Now, take a look at this photo.\u00a0 This was shot in the very same location.\u00a0 But the aperture was shot at F5.\u00a0 Everything<\/span><\/strong> is in focus.\u00a0 You can see the details of the wall,\u00a0 the broken glass and rocks on the ground and even the electrical outlets and wires on the side of the building.\u00a0 This is very distracting to the viewer and frankly, visually unappealing.\u00a0 Another problem with this photo is that the subjects are positioned very close to the brick wall.\u00a0 Had they been further away from the wall, it is possible that the wall may have been blurred more. And that brings me to my next point about controlling DOF.\u00a0 The distance from the plane of focus also affects the amount of blur that will occur in a photograph.\u00a0 The closers objects are (such as the brick wall) to the plane of focus, the more they will be in focus.\u00a0\u00a0 Had I positioned these subjects further away from the wall, I could have had it blurred out more.<\/p>\n So why did I shoot this photo at F5?\u00a0 Why not F1.8?\u00a0 I shot the photo at F5 because I was worried that I had several subjects in the photograph and they were not all on the same plane.\u00a0 The adults were positioned behind<\/span><\/strong> the children and I was concerned with that with a shallow depth of field of say F1.8, if I focused on the children, the parents would be out of focus.\u00a0 I could have chosen to put them in straight line, all on the same plane and shot the photograph at F1.8, but that would have just looked weird and unappealing.\u00a0 So I had to have a high enough aperture to ensure that they would all be in focus.\u00a0 My mistake was placing them so close to a brick wall.\u00a0 I should have put them in the shade in an open field where there was a great distance between them and the background.<\/p>\n Now, how are you able to control your aperture on your camera?\u00a0 For those of you with DSLRs, it is actually quiet simple.\u00a0 I would recommend that you start by shooting in aperture priority (AV mode on Canons & A mode on Nikons). Put your camera dial on AV mode and then select the aperture your wish to shoot at and then your camera will automatically change the shutter speed and ISO to make sure your shot has enough light.<\/p>\n A caveat – shooting at F1.8 can be difficult with children as they tend to move around a lot.\u00a0 At F1.8, there is a very small margin for error as your plane of focus is very small.\u00a0 I would recommend you start by shooting at 3.2 and then 2.8 or 2.5 and see how different your photos look.\u00a0 Also, when practicing, try to shoot outside, in the shade, so that your camera has ample light and your shutter speed will be high, reducing the possibility of blur from camera shake or fast little feet.\u00a0 (Shutter speed is a topic for another post.)<\/p>\n There are many more issues to consider when playing with DOF.\u00a0 But that would make for an epic blog post.\u00a0 I just wanted to get you all thinking about how you could quickly improve your shots and thereby making your layouts really shine!\u00a0 I know it may sound complicated, but once you have it down, you will really see a difference in your photos.\u00a0 If you have any questions about DOF or Shutter Speed, or shooting in general, please leave them in the comments and I will try to answers your questions.\u00a0 Good luck and have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello everyone, this is Susan posting today.\u00a0 In addition to being a scrapbooking designer, I am also a photographer and I would like to talk about how controlling depth of field can improve your photography.\u00a0 For those that are not familiar with the term Depth of Field (DOF), it is define by Wikipedia as, \u201cdistance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[134],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7950"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7955,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7950\/revisions\/7955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sweetshoppedesigns.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.scrapkitchen.com\/SSDBlog\/image2.jpg\" "\\"Shallow")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.scrapkitchen.com\/SSDBlog\/canonav.jpg\" "\\"AV")
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