4.Explore The Depth Of The Field

Now enough romance about light. Let’s get practical.

Depth of field is a huge part of your photography that you probably greatly underestimate.

I know, because I underestimate it. And I know that I do, and I still do. You know?

Depth of field is one of those things that seems simple at the outset, and gets progressively more complex the more you learn. But learning about it, even at the basic level, will make a huge transformation in your work.

For instance, without first learning about depth of field, you might think that to get some background blur in your image, you just need to decrease your aperture value.

But you didn’t take the focal length, subject to background distance, and camera to subject distance into account. And with a certain combination of factors. your aperture might actually have very little to no affect on your depth of field. It’s true. Sometimes there’s no discernible depth of field difference between f/1.4 and f/11.

Once you start to understand how all of these interact, you can start to get impressive background blur, even with a point and shoot camera at a high aperture, just by knowing exactly how to control all the variables.

Another misconception about depth of field is the idea that “shallow is always better”.  When you’re just getting started, shallow depth of field is a new and exciting technique. But it can be overused. Ever seen what a head shot taken at 85 mm f/1.2 looks like? It’s easy to get distracted by the beautiful bokeh, and forget to notice that not even an entire eyeball is in focus. Um, not quite right.

Don’t be afraid of high apertures. Or low apertures. In fact, don’t be afraid of your aperture at all. Learn how depth of field works, and then use it as a creative decision to make each and every image just right. That’s what a great photographer does. They know their options, and use them all.