.capturing reality.: The D.O.F.

Depth of Field is one of the first big hurdles in photography. I've heard that once I am able to tackle this, I will gain infinite amounts of confidence in my photography. Here's hoping!

So, your camera can only focus its lens on a single point, but there is an area that stretches in front and behind that point. That zone is Depth of Field. It's either described as shallow (where just a narrow zone appears sharp) or deep (where more of the picture appears sharp). When photographing a landscape, you'll want to capture detail from the entire foreground to the horizon, so a deeper DOF is desired. But in portraiture, you'll want a shallow DOF to blur out distraction so the focal point is on the subject.

In order to achieve your desired DOF, you'll need to control your aperture. Remember, an aperture at f/2.8 is wide, while an aperture of f/22 is small. To tie it all together, shallow depths of field coincide with wider f-stops, whereas smaller f-stops create a deeper depth of field.

So, I had a little experiment with DOF the other day with my boyfriend. I brought out my 50mm lens (by far my favorite lens) and took pics at each f-stop. You'll see that with each notch, everything in the background become more clear.

PS. I have no apologies for my boyfriend's silliness!