Aquiring Depth of Field on Digital Camera
by steveandbelinda
on
Jan 15, 2007 at 10:58:29 pm
I tried this affect the other day with my Olympus C5050 Zoom camera. I used a tree stump in the foreground. I focused on the tree stump, clicked the shutter button half way, to foucs on that point, then tilted the camera up to get the lake in the background. The picture came out with everything in focus, foreground & background. I then used apperature priority mode, and set the apperature full open (F8.0) The setting of the apperature goes from F1.8-8.0. The second time that I took the picture, the stump and other wood lying on the ground were bleached out look. Is this camera capable of getting a depth of field effect? I tried it on my wife's car as foreground at the lake, and didn't seem to work either.
Re: Aquiring Depth of Field on Digital Camera by herminiocordido on Jan 16, 2007 at 9:02:38 pm
Hi,
Shallow Depth of field means less part of the image is in focus (other than the focus point).
Deep depth of field is more of the image in focus.
That said, the focus point will always have some more part of the image in focus, roughly is 1x before the focus point (Closer to the lens) and 2x After the focus point (further away from the focus point), so a little graphic should be like this: (Lens) _____(Focus Point)__________
in focus(1x) in focus(2x)
X is determined by 4 factors:
- Distance from subject: the closer the subject is to the lens, the "shallower" depth of field. (X would be less)
- The Aperture, the wider it is the shallower DOF (the smaller number means the wider aperture eg. F1.8 is your widest)
- Focal Length (is expresed in mm, (not the filter tread size in the front of the lens))in other words is your zoom lens, the more "Zoomed In" you are (more mm) the shallower DOF.
- Finally is the size of the chip in your camera, as you are using a small camera (small ccd) your DOF is deeper than if you used a bigger ccd camera.
So in order to achieve your best results:
Use aperture priority set on the widest f(1.8), get as close as you can to your subject (almost that the camera wont be able to focus, your "blury" background should be as far as possible, click half way to focus your subject and shoot.
Hope it is helpful, my english is far from perfect...
Cheers
Re: Aquiring Depth of Field on Digital Camera by Amish Ed on Jan 17, 2007 at 4:22:45 pm
Once you've focused and have the shutter depressed halfway, don't move your body (step back), just reframe your composition and shoot. Truely shallow DOF is hard to get, for the reasons that herminiocordido covered.
Amish Ed
"Shoot 'em all and let the Editor sort 'em out!"
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