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Depth of Field (DoF) is one of those elementary factors in photography which seem to mystify most (new) photographers.\u00a0 A question that I’m often asked is, “How do you know how much depth of\u00a0field you need?”\u00a0 Now anyone who has delved into the topic and has done some research\u00a0knows that you soon stagger back .. your head spinning trying to tie together all the concepts:\u00a0 \u00a0circle of confusion, focal length,\u00a0subject distance, size of enlargement, format size, hyper focal distance, and so on.<\/p>\n
But a working approach might just be simpler than that …<\/p>\n
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Previously, lenses had DoF engravings on them, which gave you\u00a0a visual clue as to what might appear sharp enough at specific focusing distances, for a specific aperture for a specific lens.\u00a0 You could carry DoF tables with you.\u00a0 You now\u00a0even have applications for the iPhone which tell you how much DoF you will have for specific lenses and cameras.<\/p>\n
As a portrait and wedding photographer, I don’t bother with that much any more.\u00a0 Partly experience (and that always helps), but partly because for myself, I’ve now reduced the question of “How much depth of field do you need?”, to this answer:\u00a0 just enough.<\/p>\n
That might seem like a dismissive and facetious reply.\u00a0 However, how much depth of field do you really need?\u00a0 Just enough.<\/p>\n
Now, depending on what field of photography you’re in, your requirements will be different.\u00a0 A portrait photographer has other criteria than a\u00a0 photographer that might primarily be dealing with landscapes or\u00a0 commercial work or architecture or\u00a0sport or news.\u00a0 So do keep in mind that my answers here might not apply to you.\u00a0 I have to add that qualification before the rest gets shredded by the readers of this blog. ; )<\/p>\n
I decide on depth of field by grouping my needs into three categories ..
\n– shallow depth of field (f1.4 to f2.8 .. or even f4)
\n– medium depth of field (around f4 – f8)
\n– lots of depth of field (f8 and deeper)<\/p>\n
When I photograph a portrait, I am often just interested in getting the subject’s eyes in focus.\u00a0 So a shallow DoF would work.\u00a0 Therefore any aperture between\u00a0f4.0 and f1.4 would work.\u00a0\u00a0 The way the background renders, and how much of your subjects face is in focus will obviously vary.\u00a0 But the most important aspect of nearly any portrait – the eyes –\u00a0will be in focus, and with that you’ll have captured\u00a0the essential part.<\/p>\n
The images accompanying this post\u00a0was taken during a photo session\u00a0where the intention was to capture the mood and and a certain sexy allure.\u00a0 For this I wanted a very shallow depth of field.<\/p>\n
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How much DoF did I need?\u00a0 Just enough.\u00a0 Meaning … f2.8 would’ve done it, as well as f2 or f1.4 or anywhere in-between.\u00a0 The way the photographs would’ve appeared would’ve changed a fair amount between f1.4 and f2.8 .. but neither would be incorrect for this scenario.\u00a0 I could’ve\u00a0used any aperture there and still have been successful.\u00a0 But I wanted very shallow depth of field, so I settled on 1.4 which was especially helpful since I was shooting mostly around 1\/30 – 1\/160th at 1600 ISO during the entire session.\u00a0 All hand-held.<\/p>\n
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The point I am trying to make here is that with this\u00a0scenario (and I’d happily wager that it is true for most shooting situations), I didn’t have to consult DoF tables.\u00a0 I just had to decide on a range of apertures that I should be working in. I wanted shallow depth-of-field, and would’ve achieved that effect with a fairly large range of apertures.<\/p>\n
Also, keep in mind that DoF doesn’t have strictly definable edges.\u00a0 Meaning that if your DoF tables of DoF calculator\u00a0tells you that at f5.6 you’ll have enough DoF\u00a0between the range of (let’s say)\u00a01.5 meters to 4 meters … that doesn’t mean that at 4 meters everything will be crisp, and at f4.5 it will be\u00a0dreamily out of focus.\u00a0 It doesn’t work like that.\u00a0 It’s a gradual changing of how sharp something appears to be.\u00a0 This is important in understanding the effect of DoF and\u00a0a change in apertures.\u00a0 It is gradual, and not step-like.<\/p>\n
This implies that there is such a gradual change between adjacent 1\/3 stop values for an aperture, that it becomes trivial to pursue the difference between f3.5 and f4 … it is a more practical method to decide on a range of apertures where you need to be, and find the appropriate shutter speed and ISO range … and then juggle those three balls (aperture, shutter speed, ISO), to give you practical and useful settings for your camera.<\/p>\n
Obviously with a group you’re going to need more DoF, and then you’d most likely be working in the range of f4.0 to f8.\u00a0 If your subjects are standing (or sitting) in a way that their eyes are more or less on the same plane of focus, you could easily get away with an aperture of f4 on a full-frame D-SLR.\u00a0 But as soon as they are staggered, you’re going to need a smaller aperture.\u00a0 f8 .. or even smaller (which would mean\u00a0a numerically larger number for the aperture)<\/p>\n
With landscapes, photographers often need lots of DoF, but it depends on your artistic approach.\u00a0 You could as easily use a very wide aperture to isolate an element in that landscape.\u00a0 But, if you need greater DoF, you’ll be working in the f11 and f16 region.\u00a0 But at f22 and smaller you’re starting to hit a ceiling where diffraction starts to seriously degrade image quality. (But that’s another intense topic that you could investigate further with a Google search if need be.)<\/p>\n
As a final aside, using shallow depth of field allows me to direct the viewer’s attention.\u00a0 Here are two images .. in the first image I focused on her eyes, and the second image I focused on her hands.\u00a0 For me, both images are equally successful.<\/p>\n
Finally, to sum up this meandering post .. I wanted to indicate a way to free you up artistically from the anxiety of deciding on a specific\u00a0aperture .. especially if you’ve been using\u00a0 DoF calculators.\u00a0 My working approach to decisions about DoF:\u00a0 Decide how much depth of field you approximately need, and then use an aperture in that range where you’ll have\u00a0 just enough depth of field.\u00a0 Self-apparent in its simplicity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n choosing the necessary aperture for depth of field (DoF) Depth of Field (DoF) is one of those elementary factors in photography which seem to mystify most (new) photographers.\u00a0 A question that I’m often asked is, “How do you know how much depth of\u00a0field you need?”\u00a0 Now anyone who has delved into the topic and has Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17,24,33,840,42,1,955],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[8816,6041,6038,1217,1221,6040,8812,6039,1219,8817,8811,8818,6037,4488,1218,1198,8815,8809,1220,8814],"class_list":{"0":"post-819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boudoir-photography","8":"category-general-photography","9":"category-models","10":"category-portraits","11":"category-priscilla","12":"category-technique","13":"category-uncategorized","14":"category-understanding-your-camera","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40542,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions\/40542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/models\/priscilla\/NV1_5324-900.jpg\")
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