Depth-Of-Field (DOF) in Photography

Hi guys, today I am writing up a general tutorial on how Depth-Of-Field (DOF for short) works in photography. It is actually pretty easy to learn. DOF is pretty much how much of an image that can be in focus at certain settings. There is actually quite a lot of physics and how light travels, but I will just be giving a pretty general overview in this tutorial to help you take better photos.

For depth of field, here are the 2 rules you need to remember:

• The closer you are to an object, the less you can get in focus. The farther away, the more you can get in focus. That is why you see people using telephoto lenses to do portraits. Zoom in and back up if you want more in focus. 
• The wider your aperture, the less you can get in focus, however you get more light and faster shutter. The narrower your aperture, the more you can get in focus, however less light means slower shutter speed. Don't go too narrow, or you will experience blurriness. 

The distance is quite self explanatory, but aperture might be a bit confusing for beginners, so I will go into more detail here. The scale for aperture might be a bit confusing for beginners as the scale is kind of "opposite". The aperture is measured in f-stops (generally denoted as "f/XX" where "XX" is the aperture). The SMALLER the number, the BIGGER the aperture opening (example: f/2.8), more light and faster shutter speed. The BIGGER the number, the SMALLER the aperture opening (example: f/22), less light and slower shutter speed. If you are on a tripod and want everything in focus, you can use a smaller aperture, however when handheld, you want to balance these to not get motion blur, but still get a usable image. The widest aperture for the lens is generally denoted in the name of the lens (you can't go wider than that). Some zoom lenses have a variable aperture where the widest aperture will change as you zoom in and out. You usually find two aperture numbers in the names of those lenses. 

For landscape shots, you don't want to go all out f/22. When the aperture opening gets that small, a different type of distortion occurs and you will get a blurry image that looks out of focus. I generally use an f/14 and f/16 for my landscape shots, but the "good aperture" varies lens to lens and is something you want to experiment with and balance out with DOF. When handheld, I use a middle of the road aperture for landscape shots somewhere from f/8 to f/11.

If you want to experiment with the aperture controls to further control DOF, you can do so in the following modes of your camera: A or Av (Aperture Priority), M (Manual), or B (Bulb) modes.

Below are some sample photos to show you the DOF from controlling the aperture. These photos are shot at Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA on my road trip from the SF Bay Area to Vancouver, BC, Canada. You can view the photos from my trip here. The photos are of the giant steel cables keeping the bridge up. I thought they would make a great DOF subject to do a tutorial on.

This first photo is shot at f/2.8, a very wide aperture with less of the cable in focus. 

Here is a photo at f/5. As you can see more of the cable is in focus now. 

Here is a photo at f/2.8. See how very little of the cable is in focus. 

Here is another photo at f/5. As you can see more of the cable is in focus. 

This is it for the tutorial! I hope it has helped you out a bit with your photography. :) Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

Depth of Field in Photography (Video)

This video explains what depth of field in photography is and how you can adjust it in your camera.

Key Points:

• Depth of Field = DOF
• Wide DOF is narrow aperture, high F-stop number, and will have most/all of your photo in focus. This is generally used for landscape shots.
• Narrow DOF is wide aperture, low F-stop number, and will blur out most of the foreground/background. This is generally used for portraits, animal, macro, etc photos.

If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe me here.

Message from author: Looks like I broke my promise again! This isn't Monterey photos right? XD Well first of all, sorry! Second of all, I want to tell you all something. This is the first photography tip/tutorial video I made and I plan on doing more of these "lectures" in the future. If you haven't done so, the link to my Youtube channel is above, so please subscribe if you love photography! Have a nice day. I will begin the Monterey photos tomorrow. No more excuses!

Introduction to Aperture

Today I will teach you about choosing an aperture. An aperture is a hole inside the lens in which light travels through. Aperture is a very important thing to learn about for a photographer. First of all, if you are new, aperture can only be adjusted while in Aperture Priority (Av) mode, Manual (M) mode, and Bulb mode. If you would like to mess with this function, use those modes. Aperture is measured in f-stops or f/xx where xx is a number. The bigger the number, the smaller the opening. So as you can now see, the smaller the number, the wider the aperture opens, the more light that hits the sensor, which in turn, will decrease your shutter speed. The bigger the number, the smaller the opening, the less light that can hit the sensor, the longer the shutter speed. Now you may be asking, "Why don't we always open up the aperture to the widest mode?" See the next to photos below.

The photo above was taken with a f/7.1. See how the background is nice and blurred out? Opening up your camera's aperture wide is key for macro photography. For macro photography, you want the background nice and blurred out while your subject is in focus. 

The second photo is of the same subject except it was taken at f/45. See how the background is so much more in focus now? This is not what you want your macro photo to be like. You want the background blurred out, however this is the effect you want when you are doing landscape. In a landscape shot, you want everything in focus. Closing up your aperture for a landscape shot is key to a great photo. 

Good! Now you just learned about adjusting your aperture for what ever you need! Please note an aperture of f/7-f/10 is a "default" aperture a camera uses. If you ever use program or auto, this is what your camera will usually be using. I hope you have enjoyed today's lesson. :) Have fun and experiment with aperture yourself! Please share this with other photography enthusiasts. If you would like to be notified next time I post, please "Like" us on Facebook.

Wild Turkeys

Like I promised last time, today's post will be on birds. :) So, the other day, on way to Del Valle Regional Park, I saw a flock of turkeys on both sides of the road. So I stopped and took some photos. :) I even shot a few photos of them in flight, but only one was clear and usable.

All photos today was taken in manual. Setting it in aperture priority was messing up the shutter speed, so I had to mess with the options in manual. It resulted in lesser photos, but at least most of them were usable. I only have 4 photos today, hope you enjoy viewing them! Del Valle Regional Park is located in Livermore, CA.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best bird photos from 2011, use this link. To see my best Del Valle Regional Park photos, use this link. To see all of my Del Valle Regional Park photos of 2011, use this link.

This was probably the best photo I shot of the turkey.

Turkey crossing the street. By the way, there were at least a hundred turkeys on the side of the road. They were eating, what I guess is grass. HAHA Cute! They weren't scared of me at all. 

This one started running because I car was coming. The car stopped and waited while the some 20 turkeys crossed the road. LOL

Later the rest of the flock flew away. I quickly increased the ISO and decreased my shutter speed for the in flight birds. This was the only "usable" photo I had as the rest were blurry. I was really surprised I even got one! Really gotta thank my Canon EOS 7D for its fast shutter speeds. LOL

That all for the turkey photos. I hope I will get to see more turkeys in the future. :) They are really cute birds. Don't chirp that loud though, they were all like Gobble Gobble. HAHA Too bad I didn't get these photos before Thanksgiving, would have been more fit for the holiday. Oh well! Hope you have enjoyed viewing these photos! Please don't forget to share with your friends and "Like" us on Facebook!

The Moon

The moon, Earth's only natural occurring satellite. A giant piece of rock floating in outer space. It is a wonderful site. Although it doesn't emit light of it's own, it reflects light from the sun so we can see at night. I recently taken some moon photos from my house, including the full moon. I hope you like them! I missed the lunar eclipse, sorry. One night of no sleep and I have very bad headache the next day, so I didn't say up. HAHA

These photos was all taken with my Canon EOS 7D at 300mm on my USM lens. I will tell you what settings I used under each photo. Hopefully it will help you take some better photos yourself! :) Also, click the photo to see the full size.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing here.

Anyways, this photo, it says I used 280mm focal length. This is the only exception. 

Mode: Shutter Priority

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

Mode: Shutter Priority

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

Mode: Shutter Priority

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

For some reason it says focal length 260mm. Huh. Weird...

Mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/250 of second

Aperture: f/8

ISO: 100

Mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/320 of second

Aperture: f/10

ISO: 100

Mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/320 of second

Aperture: f/10

ISO: 100

So, full moon was yesterday. That was all the good photos I took. I hope you have enjoyed it! Please leave me a comment if you loved it and share with your friends. You know, this is the first time I even tried to take a photo of the moon. Surprised I can see all the craters on the moon! Wow, what a strong camera and lens. Anyways, please like my blog on Facebook. You can also do it in the box on the top of the right sidebar.