Would anyone like to give "their" definition of "Shallow Depth of Field"? I was always under the impression both background and foreground should be out of focus with only your subject well defined. From what I've been reading that is not necessarily the case. Anyone have any thoughts/opinions?
A good basic rule is the wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. Only two things really affect DOF - they are aperture setting and lens length.
Since most people without DSLRs cannot affect lens length then they are left with aperture setting. Most macro settings in automatic mode, if I am not mistaken, set the camera to its maximum aperture setting - usually 2.0.
Here are two small images, taken on my desktop as I wrote this note. They are both taken with macro setting on, aperture priority, ambient lighting.
At 2.0 Aperture setting
A so-called - shallow depth of field
A good basic rule is the wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. Only two things really affect DOF - they are aperture setting and lens length.
Distance to subject is a major player in depth of field also.
Yes, that's true. As is lighting in a similar context. And each element could alter aperture decisions to the desired effect.
It's my experience, and I could well be wrong - I often am - that a great percentage of extremely shallow DOF shots are necessarily taken in macro mode to achieve the sharpness required/desired thus distance to subject is alterable only within a discrete range.
this was not done in macro mode, but with a zoom lense at 480mm equiv.
smallest Fstop, closest focal distance allowed by the lense. had i been farther away with the same settings ( and croppped it ), the DOF would be different.
also being an animal, i wouldnt have been able to get the shot using a macro lense... so knowing what does and doesnt play a roll in DOF is important - not just some of what plays a roll...
My mistake in communication. I was speaking of DOF in terms of what can be done to the camera settings on an average (non DLSR) digital camera to achieve shallow DOF. Distance to subject (and lighting) are a factor in every aspect of photography. As is temperature, humidity and cleanliness of glass.
its the same on a point and shoot digi cam as with a slr style cam...
in macro mode, slight differences in distance to subject are more drastic than with the camera zoomed from a distance, and the distance to subject changed by the same amount as it was in macro mode shot, even if the sbject area takes up the same percentage of the frame -w/o cropping..
comments not aimed at you - just general in nature...
the comment was almost correct - its aperture and magnification that impact depth of field, not lens focal length
magnification is a function of focal length and subject distance so all 3 come in to play with shallow DoF. Magnification is also modified by sensor size, which is part of the reason why large sensor SLRs have more DoF control available than the smaller sensor compact cameras.
i was trying to say there are different ways of acheiving the same end.
and that you don't have to have a close up lense to achieve shallow DOF.
i could get the same result out of the cat with the 18-55mm at 55mm - but would have to be closer, and handholding - be more careful with my subject distance - because the DOF would change more dramtically with a small change is subject distance. where as with the longer lense i could be farther away, but also an inch closer wouldn't affect the DOF as much as with the shorter lense closer to the subject ( say the cat moved slightly ). so my liklihood for error was less... at the risk of an unsharp shot due to focal length and shake...
if i am wrong i am sorry... it won't happen again ;}
So this shot of mine would fit the challenge nicely?
You could get your depth of field a lot more shallow in this shot... back up from your subject and use maximum zoom on the camera and shoot at the same aperture setting.
What might better fit the "creative use of a shallow DOF" could be to have a stack of books in a stair-step pile (i.e. the bottom book is closest to the lens, the top book is farther or farthest away), then get a narrow DOF such that only the middle book's spine is in focus. Then, if there was some "meaning" to that book's title, in relation to the other books, and highlighted by the title of you shot, then you've got something creative. Can't think of any clever example of the last part to round it off at the moment, but hopefully you get the idea.
You could get your depth of field a lot more shallow in this shot... back up from your subject and use maximum zoom on the camera and shoot at the same aperture setting.
You could get your depth of field a lot more shallow in this shot... back up from your subject and use maximum zoom on the camera and shoot at the same aperture setting.
With my camera, that's about the effect I get with max. zoom(3x optical)/max. aperature (F/2.8). The "sweet spot" for want of a better word is pretty wide I guess. Is this competition going to be about how "shallow" we can make our DOF? I really don't want to enter something that's going to score low because it was technically impossible to achieve with my camera.
Would anyone like to give "their" definition of "Shallow Depth of Field"? I was always under the impression both background and foreground should be out of focus with only your subject well defined. From what I've been reading that is not necessarily the case. Anyone have any thoughts/opinions?
I think you said it well. For some subjects this works well, for other it doesnt. For portraits with a cluttered background it works well, or trying to really focus on a macro object
