Expressing Yourself Through Photography: Depth of Field

The one technique that will make the biggest difference in the quality of most peoples photos is depth of field. Depth of field is essentially how much of a photo is in sharp focus, from the front to the back. It's the reason that most snap shots look flat and uninteresting. Shallow depth of field isolates your subject from the background, while a deeper focus is many times distracting to a viewer because your subject is just as focused as a painting on the wall or the people behind them, for example. On the other hand, sometimes you want that deep focus if you're shooting a landscape or a large group. It all depends on the look you want. I want to show you some tips on how to get it.

So how do you achieve your optimal depth of field? There are basically four factors.

1. Subjects distance from background/foreground.

If you put your subject with their back against a wall it's gonna look like a mug shot. If you instead put that subject on a hill overlooking a city, the background will fall more out of focus. That's an exaggerated example, but the idea is to put everything you don't want in focus as far behind, or in some cases in front, of your subject as possible.

2. Camera distance from the subject.

The closer you get to a subject, the shallower the depth of field. Only having someone's nose in a photo because you want to blur the tree behind them is not exactly optimal though so we use this technique in relation to...

3. Focal length of lens

Getting right in someone's face is not always make for good photos so use a longer lens to zoom in on your subject. This has the added effect of a more flattering perspective, especially with peoples faces (wide lens make things look um...round).

4. Aperture

The aperture is the opening at the back of the lens that controls the amount of light that gets through. Through the magic of physics it also controls your depth of field. The aperture is measured in f-stops and the smaller the number, the wider the opening (I know, it seems kinda backwards). The wider the opening, the shallower the focus. If you want more of the photo in focus, dial that aperture number up farther. Part of the reason that professionals shoot with these huge, wide aperture lenses is to get that shallow depth of field.

Here's an example of putting many of those factors to work together:

This is a shot of Dweezil Zappa playing at Rothbury in 2009. The only parts of the photo in focus are the hands and the parts of the guitar around the hands. The parts closer, such as the lettering on the toggle switch, and things farther away, like his shirt or the lighting rig behind him, are out of focus. This was shot with a fairly long focal length (about 155mm), from about 6-7 feet away with an aperture of f/5. Notice it has just the parts I wanted to bring attention to in focus and everything else falls out of focus so as not to distract attention from the subject.

Shooting with a compact camera presents some challenges for those wanting shallow depth of field. Small sensors in compact cameras mean small lenses and short focal lengths. By setting up your subject correctly and using the zoom you can do better than mug shots, but you won't get the silky smooth backgrounds you can achieve with an SLR camera and a long, wide aperture lens. That's why they cost ALOT of money though.

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