Digital Photography Magazine

Using your digital camera to adjust the Depth of Field is a power technique you can use to produce remarkable pictures. What is Depth of Field? Depth of Field can be defined as what do you want to focus in your picture, such as in front of, behind of, the point of focus. This means that, do you want the background of your subject to stay focus or blur, or, do you want your foreground of your subject to stay focus or blur.

For long Depth of Field, the background and foreground of the subject will stay focus. Likewise, for short Depth of Field, the background of the subject will stay blur. As such, by using the Depth of Field technique, you are able to create excellent pictures. If you are still not sure about the definition of Depth of Field, you can think it as Depth of Focus.

How do you control your Depth of Field with you digital camera? You can easily control it by manually adjusting your aperture and shutter speeds. Take note that the aperture setting determines your depth of field. It is determined by the aperture number or "f/stop". The smaller your aperture number, the shorter your depth of field will be. After you have set the aperture number, you can use the shutter speed to compensate for proper exposure. Once you have set both the aperture and shutter speed, you can use your digital cameras to take a few shots for testing. If your shot is either too light or too dark, you can adjust the shutter speed until you get the proper exposure. Alternatively, you can also maintain a certain shutter speed and vary the aperture to obtain the proper exposure.

In order to have a long depth of field, set your aperture to f/22. Remember, the larger the number, the longer will be the Depth of Field. Take a few shots with different shutter speeds until you get good exposure. By using long Depth of Field, your background will be just as focus as the subject because the Depth of Field (f/22) is deep, allowing everything to stay in focus from front to back. The convention is, the higher the aperture number, the smaller the diameter of the aperture opening will be, and thus the deeper your depth of field will be.

Now, for the shorter Depth of Field experiment, set your aperture to f/3.5 (its widest setting). Next, adjust the shutter speed to obtain a good exposure. With a short Depth of Field, the background of the subject will now be blur or fuzzy. The reason for this is, the focus area or depth of field is limited to the area around the subject. Using shorter Depth of Field to produce this effect is to catch viewer's attention to the subject and nothing else. For a better understand of this technique, please see [http://www.internetbizcenter.com/photography/index15.htm ]HERE for an illustration.

Your digital camera can do wonders. Using it to adjust the Depth of Field is a power technique you should not miss. The effects created by using the Depth of Field technique will dramatically increase the overall composition of your picture. Try it today.

John Peace enjoys photography and maintained a website providing information on photography. He invites you to visit his website, Freelance Photography to learn more about this exciting hobby. You can even make a living out of it at home! Believe it or not. Or you can visit the link at: http://www.internetbizcenter.com/photography/index.htm

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