Hello all,

I hope you don't mind me adding this, but there is something very important about Depth of Field that never seems to get mentioned.

Now, we al know what depth of field is, most of you will have figured that out by now. But there are two very important factors that affect Depth of Field other than simply the Aperture setting (F number)

They are:

1. Lens length
2. Distance from object.

The longer the lens, the generally the shallower the DoF. The Closer you are to an object, the shallower the DoF.

This is very important, especially when doing close up or macro work. The closer you get to an object, the shallower the DoF. So if you are using a Macro lens to take a photo of a flower from just a few inches, changing the aperture can have almost no effect. This is really important.

If you are a few feet from a subject and you are doing a portrait, because you are focussed on that person and are close to them, even with a small aperture, you may not get the person behind them in focus as well (when I say behind, I mean a couple of feet, not directly) So standing back with a bit more zoom might enable you to get both subjects in focus.

So you can see, if I want a narrow DoF, and I can get closer to my object, this will give me a shallow Dof before I have even set the aperture.

I hope this is food for thought for you all

Alan.

I've merged the threads and added a note to post one Alan

Here is my attempt


F3.5


F8


F16


F22

Nice example Moon

Very nice examples, you can really see how the DoF is changing - especially in the background

Hello!
I'm brand new to this forum and brand new to photography.
These are my first pictures taken with a 'real' camera.
I'm not sure how much difference you can see, but I learnt lots doing it!

(pictures were cropped but not altered)

I'll have a go at taking pictures of just one object this week.
Em

I can see some difference, definitely, but I'm not sure it's the best example single object may work better!

Still, I rather like the photos!

xx

Well done little me! I can see the difference - look at f4 vs f29 in particular

A static object may be easier to see the difference with as you wouldn't have wiggly legs in it

Hello Little me, even if you examine the difference between f4 & f10 you will see a big difference, look only at the leaves on the bush in the centre and you will see it is sharper in the latter because in the f10 it is within the depth of field where as in f4 is it not

OK tried again with a slightly more static object!



I was going to wait until tomorrow to try with a random inaminate object, but she was lying there so relaxed and gorgeous!