Know How to Control Your Depth of Field

A rocky vantage point of view from Mt Kinabalu - Photo by angela7dreams

Control your images  As you progress with your photography you'll likely "wake up" one day realizing that you need to have greater control over your images.

Basically, this means controlling the depth of field by adjusting the Aperture-Priority mode. That done, the camera will ensure proper exposure by automatically adjusting the shutter speed.

In the previous post, we touched on the Landscape mode which is the other extreme from the Portrait mode, the later being designed to produce images with minimum depth of field.
As we know by now, the Landscape mode produces images with maximum depth of field. In the following article, Al Sanchez explains further the meaning of depth of field and how a photographer can make the best use of it.

Sun Moon Lake - Photo: Enid Yu

Using Depth of Field - Digital Photography Easy Tips

Depth of field is something that you really need to know about in digital photography. It is something that you know about already but may not know the name of.

The depth means the distance from the closest part of the photo and the part of the picture that is the farthest away that are all in focus. This is the area of the photograph that is clearly in focus.

A general idea of the range of the photo that is in focus is to see that the one-third in front of the object photographed and two-thirds behind the object is in the same depth of field.

The depth of your image is based on a lot of things. It can be affected by various things such as using the zoom button on your camera or changing the lens to a different type.

The depth is influenced mainly by the lenses focal length, the aperture of the lens being used, and how far the subject being photographed is from the camera.

The depth of area in focus can be manipulated by you as a photographer. You can choose to make it very large and have everything in focus or have a small area of the picture in focus.

The lighting and the aperture of the lens will make a great impact on the depth that the photo has. A smaller aperture f-stop will make you have a much larger depth range whereas a larger aperture will give you a smaller range of area in focus.

If you want to have a shallow depth of field then use large aperture numbers like F/2.8. This will make the subject in focus but everything else very out of focus. A large aperture like this will make very extreme blurred backgrounds that are unrecognizable. You can also make it slightly out of focus by using something a little smaller.

An expansive depth can be achieved by using a smaller aperture like F/16. This will give you a picture where mostly everything is in focus. Be sure, however, when taking pictures like this to bring a tripod. Many landscape photos do require tripods since they use very small aperture values that require longer exposure times.

About the author: Al Sanchez has a great program that teaches you how to take better photos. He also teaches people how to sell pictures online.