Photography Basics

Learn the basics of digital photography in easy steps

An example of depth of field

Posted on | April 16, 2007 | 5 Comments

In another post about aperture priority, I talked about depth of field as being the amount of the photo that is in focus for a given aperture setting.

The following two images demonstrate this. The first uses an aperture of f2.8 which is a very wide aperture meaning the hole that light can pass through is large. This gives a narrow depth of field with only a small area of the image in focus.

Depth Of Field f2.8

The next image shows the other extreme, a very small aperture, f22. This has much more of the image in focus, but requires a longer shutter speed.

Depth Of Field f22

Try the different aperture settings on your camera and learn how changing the aperture will effect the image.

Comments

5 Responses to “An example of depth of field”

  1. What is Macro Photography? · Photography Basics
    June 19th, 2007 @ 11:43 am

    [...] Depth of field is also going to be more obvious. Being that close up you will need to use a small aperture to make sure you get a suitably large area in focus, although you can also use aperture creatively to pick out one area. [...]

  2. Bruce
    January 30th, 2008 @ 7:28 am

    This is an excellent example, coupled with the short article explaining aperture priority mode it has really helped me understand things better. Thanks !

  3. Bruce
    January 30th, 2008 @ 7:34 am

    oh, and I’m also curious as to what the wing is from ? ;)

  4. Garry
    January 30th, 2008 @ 9:36 am

    Hi Frank, glad you found it useful. The wing, I think, is from a … well, it’s not a harrier, but the one that’s very similar to a harrier, or maybe came before the harrier that looks exactly the same. It’s sitting at Brooklands museum.

  5. Neil
    March 2nd, 2008 @ 9:11 am

    They are called vortex generators, nice and concise explanation using an excellent example. Thanks.

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