Woot, woot! Today we get to learn about Depth of field. Have you ever looked at a photo and thought, how do I get that blurry background and sharp foreground? The amount of the photo that is in focus is depth of field. Depth of field is determined by a few factors but the main factors is your f-stops.
The lower the f-stops, or the more wide open your aperture, the smaller the depth of field. The larger your f-stops the greater your depth of field. A larger depth of field is great for landscape photography or when you want to get everything on an even plane in a sense. The smaller depth of field numbers blur out the background making your subject the focus of the shot and giving great bokeh in the background (that’s those round blurry circles!)
I often like to set my camera in Aperture priority mode. What this does is let me set the depth of field (f-stops) how I want them and then the camera controls the shutter speed. This gives me a little less to try and change every time a child or pet runs out of frame!
This photo was taken at f 2.0 so the barn is blurry and some of the grass but the grass right under the subjects are in focus more but the subjects are the sharpest part of the image.
The other great thing about short depth of field is that you are letting in more light as your aperture is open wider. That allows for lower ISO and greater shutter speed. A fast shutter speed can be critical when photographing children or movement. If you are shooting on a bright sunny day and are not in enough shade you may find that you can’t get your f-stops as low as you want. That’s one of those moments where I want to curse the triangle! haha, just go out and experiment with f-stops and depth of field!
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