Weekly Assignment: Limit Depth of Field to Show Off Your Subject

[PWS-Staff]

Perhaps the biggest benefit of being able to control depth of field is that you get to match your choice of approach to your subjects. While using a lot of depth of field is a great way to add detail to expansive landscapes, doing the opposite — limiting depth of field to just a few feet (or even inches) — lets you isolate a subject from its background.

For this assignment, choose a subject (perhaps a friend or a pet) that is bold enough to stand on its own and that looks best when you use shallow depth of field to extract it from its surroundings. Remember, the three keys to reducing depth of field are using a large aperture, using a longer lens, and getting close to your subject. And because depth of field is so shallow, precise,focus on your main subject is very important.

I photographed this sheep on a beautiful farm in Maine on a late afternoon one sunny summer day. As pretty as the farm was, I wanted the sheep to be the star of the shot, and so I used a long (360mm) zoom setting to isolate it from the background, and a wide aperture of f/5.6 to render the farmyard and the base of the barn out of focus. I had to talk to the sheep constantly to keep its attention.

[goldcoastgolfer]

Took this one of my wife about two weeks ago.  The background was a reasonable distance away from her so it resulted in a shallow depth of field in this shot.

Taken with a Nikon D7000 and Tokina 28-210mm lens:

Exposure: 1/8000 at f 5/6
Focal Length: 165mm (247.5mm in 35mm format)
ISO: 5000

[heartvn04]

[quote author=PWS-Staff link=topic=2921.msg4173#msg4173 date=1321849085]
Perhaps the biggest benefit of being able to control depth of field is that you get to match your choice of approach to your subjects. While using a lot of depth of field is a great way to add detail to expansive landscapes, doing the opposite — limiting depth of field to just a few feet (or even inches) — lets you isolate a subject from its background.

For this assignment, choose a subject (perhaps a friend or a pet) that is bold enough to stand on its own and that looks best when you use shallow depth of field to extract it from its surroundings. Remember, the three keys to reducing depth of field are using a large aperture, using a longer lens, and getting close to your subject. And because depth of field is so shallow, precise,focus on your main subject is very important.

I photographed this sheep on a beautiful farm in Maine on a late afternoon one sunny summer day. As pretty as the farm was, I wanted the sheep to be the star of the shot, and so I used a long (360mm) zoom setting to isolate it from the background, and a wide aperture of f/5.6 to render the farmyard and the base of the barn out of focus. I had to talk to the sheep constantly to keep its attention.
[/quote]

[InspiringFotos]

For this assignment, I took a trip to Tucson to find my desert friend that was bold enough to stand on its own and that looks his or her best when I tried to use shallow depth of field to extract it from its surroundings. I was also trying to capture wildlife in his or her own environment and surrounding for my wildlife photography collection. This photo was taken with my Canon EOS Rebel T1i at 1/60s, f/4.0, ISO 1600 focal length of 55 mm (telephoto lens) at AV mode during the sunset hour.

Even though I took this photo with my telephoto lens, I was only about 2 feet away (which is in sticking distance). Trick to photographing snakes in the desert, bring a friend for safety as they keep their eye on the snake at all times while the photographer tries to get the right shot. Also know a little bit about the wildlife creature before photographing it. This is a picture of a bull snake. Snakes come out during the sunset hour to warm up on the pavement, so always watch where you walk when out in the desert during this time of day.

[goldcoastgolfer]

Your friend looks interesting!  Given you were talking the shot at sunset, was there an opportunity to get the sky in to add a little colour and contrast to the shot?  Although if it were me, I probably wouldn't want to get down low to take that angle. 

[InspiringFotos]

I did capture the sunset, but that was a different shot. I think the only way to get a sunset shot with the snake is if the snake was coiled on a rock and the sunset was in the back ground. When the snakes are laying on the pavement to warm up you don't get the opportunity for the sunset back drop, plus I also would not want to get down to that angle unless their was a glass pain between me and the snake. Now if this was a rattler, I would not have been this close.