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.

My first portrait shoot!

Today I have something special. Here are the photos from my first ever portrait shoot. These photos were also shot on 5/31/2014 in Fremont Central Park in Fremont, CA. I met up with a friend that day and got her to model for a few shots and she agreed to have me share it out. This was the first ever portrait shoot I tried with a reflector. I did blind her on a few shots with the silver side of the reflector because this was the first time I tried using one and had no clue what I was doing. The only other practice I had before with people was in street photography, which is very different than using a reflector and shooting photos of a model. Even though I had watched many tutorials and lectures on Youtube on how to do portrait photos, the hands on experience is quite different than just watching other people do it. If you want to see a higher resolution of any of the photos you see here, you can do so with this link. In this blog post I will also point out some beginner mistakes and things that beginner portrait photographers should be watching for.

Notes on these photos: The photos in this blog post are not available for commercial use and/or personal use. The photos in this blog post are not for sale. You may not redistribute and/or make copies of the photos in this blog post in anyway. 

The shade is always a good spot to shoot portraiture as the light is very soft in the shade however always pay attention to the background and try not to blow it out. I had a few people tell me the background looks a bit blown out. No reflectors or flash was used in this portrait. Usually, when you compose, you want the background to also be in the shade or try to balance out the light with an external flash or by bouncing some light in using a reflector. This was my first portrait shoot so I was still experimenting and didn't pay too much on the background. For the background in this photo, that was as much as Camera RAW will go at recovering the highlights. Always shoot your photos in RAW! There is a lot more room to work with the shot after than JPEG. 

Also when composing your shot, pay attention to what is in the background! I did not see that trash can until I was back on the computer. The first photo is a the edited one with the trash can patched out. Pay attention to your background or prepare to spend a lot of time in 

Photoshop patching things out with the Healing Brush. The mistake I made at the beginning was just checking to see if the exposure was good, making sure everything is in focus, and checking to see if there is any motion blur as I was on a non-image stabilized lens.

Here is another portrait photo with a slightly different pose at almost the same spot as above. 

The trash can was also in this photo sadly. Another method is if there is an unavoidable obstacle in the composition, position the person to block out the object in your photo, however this can be tricky at times. 

My friend suggested that we do some on the swings so that is the next spot. Since this was under the sun, I decided to experiment with my reflector a bit. I blinded her a bit with the silver side. I tried a few photos with the silver side however they did not work out so well. The silver side is way too intense. I think the silver is used for further away light bouncing. I'm not too sure how to use it. Either way, whenever you plan to bounce some light in, have the person you are shooting face away from the sun. 

Here is another photo shot with the silver side of the reflector. 

After all that squinting, I decided to give the white side of the reflector a go. With the white side of the reflector, the light bounced is a lot softer however you do need to get pretty up close to the model in order to see it have an effect. However after switching over to white, the photos turned out a lot better. The background is still a bit blown out on this photo. A lot more learning to do. :)

One last portrait of my friend with the white side of the reflector. 

These are all the photos for today. 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.

First Time Trying Focus Stacking (Muir Woods National Monument)

I recently took a trip to both Muir Woods National Monument and Sausalito (pretty close together). That day at Muir Woods National Monument, I tried to do focus stacking when I noticed I can't get everything in focus when I wanted to get close up to the mushrooms growing in the park. I am here to show you the results I got! :) I used my Canon 600EX-RT in all of these photos along with a Fotodiox Softbox. If you want to see the rest of my Muir Woods National Monument photos, you can do so here. If you want to see my Sausalito photos, you can do so here.

The mushrooms you see in this blog post are called Turkey Tail Mushrooms (Trametes versicolor). The mushrooms are not poisonous and are edible. It has been used for a very long time in herbal medicine to help boost the immune system and help prevent/treat cancer. Clinical studies have shown this mushroom does help kill off cancerous cells and help a person recover.

Second introduction here is on focus stacking. If you are a pro and know what focus stacking is, great! If not, let me teach you. If you are just learning photography, you should know the amount of stuff you can get in focus, decreases as you get closer to the subject. The amount of things you can get focuses is called your depth-of-field. The farther away you are from the subject, the more you can get in focus in front of it and in the back of it, the closer you are to a subject, the less you can get in focus. To help you understand this, I actually have a Youtube video on depth-of-field that you can watch here. Sadly, this means that the closer you get, the less of your subject will be in focus! So how do you get the whole thing to focus? You take multiple shots at different focuses and combine them later in Photoshop! I'll teach you how to do this at the end of this blog post.

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 Muir Woods National Monument photos for 2012, use this link. To see my best Sausalito photos, use this link. To see all of my photos from this trip, use this link.

 I think this is the best photo I took at the park.

The tree stump of a fallen tree. Sure a lot of mushrooms!  

Some mushrooms and moss growing on a tree.

These are all the focus stacked photos I took at Muir Woods National Monument, and like I said above, I will teach you how to do this.

Settings on your camera:

• Aperture Priority (Av or A)
• Narrow aperture

How to take your photos for focus stacking:

1. Plug a remote shutter release into  your camera and set your camera on your tripod. Make sure it is far enough to focus on the closest part you want to focus on! If you are using a flash, try to set it on a light stand or hold it steady. Moving the flash slightly between shots is fine. 
2. Take a photo, focus a bit farther, take another, and continue to do this until you get all the parts you want in focus. 

How to combine them in Photoshop:

1. If you did them in RAW, drag all 3 into Photoshop and process them in the same manner, then open them up in Photoshop. If you did them in JPEG, go ahead and just open them in Photoshop. 
2. File >> Scripts >> Load Files into Stack... >> Add Open Files (Make sure "Attept to Align Source Images" is checked) >> OK
3. Select All Layers in the Layers Panel
4. Edit >> Auto-Blend Layers >> Check Mark "Stack Images" and "Seamless Tones and Colors" and press OK
5. After Photoshop is done, make sure you crop out some of the borders that show up on the side (due to the different focuses), and then save and you are done! 

I hope you have enjoyed the photos and the tutorial! I will be posting the other photos I took on this trip soon, and the links will be at the top of this blog post. Please don't forget to share my blog posts with your friends! If you would like to get notifications next time I post, you can "Like" me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

See the rest of my Muir Woods National Monument photos here. See my Sausalito photos here.