debrief - first exercises

Task #1 was to introduce you first-hand to the effect of aperture.  When you are out shooting, you need to be conscious of your aperture, as too shallow a DOF may result in not enough being in focus (a group of people 2 or 3 layers deep, the eyes being in focus but not the tip of the nose, etc.)

Task #2 was to introduce you to the plane of focus - how close or how far away from you is the area in focus?  When you are out shooting, you will be making creative choices constantly. Here is an example of a shallow DOF, with the plane of focus very close to the camera.  If I had used a deep enough DOF to get the parents in focus, how would that have affected the impact of the image?


Task #3 was to get you to practice focusing in the dark.  That's all.   Well, OK - it was to demonstrate and reinforce manual focusing, and how the plane of focus is a specific distance from the camera.  Remember when you were a kid, and the school photographer held that string tied to the camera up to everyone's nose before taking the picture?  He was making sure the kids were the correct distance from the camera.  Neat, huh?

With experience, you will learn to select the best DOF for the task at hand, whether that's taking a group picture with everything in front and behind them in bokeh, a beautiful sunset landscape with everything in focus, or a close-up of baby's hand with just the fingertips in focus.

I encourage you to scroll through other photographers' pictures and see if you can identify the creative intent behind the DOF used.

Comments

Tanya said…
I'm super disappointed I won't get to do any of this cool arty sort of stuff with photo's. My camera just does not seem to have the capabilities.
Hope Walls said…
Tanya - there's a lot more that you can do with that camera than you are giving it credit for. Try putting it in macro mode and see what it does. That's YOUR project for today. lol
Tanya said…
K I will give some of the tasks a shot.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Unless otherwise noted, writing and watermarked images on this blog are copyrighted to Hope Walls.