How to select the good depth of field in photography ?
That’s probably one of the toughest thing to do in photography…
Why do I say that ? Technically it is indeed very simple. To select the good depth of field you just have to change your aperture = the f value in your camera.
This value is totally driven by you lens ability too open big or not.
For the most extreme lenses you have f0,95. When you have such a big aperture it gives you a very short depth of field (= everything before and after your point of focus is blurred ).
And then it goes till f22 or more where basically all your picture will be totally visible and in the focus.
The rule of thumb to chose your aperture :
f0,95 till 2,8 = night picture / portrait / macro on a subject / you want to isolate your subject from the background
f2,8 till 5,6 = you do a picture of a group of people but they are not all in the same line / you want to do a longer exposure and not to be overexposed
f5,6 and above : you have too much light striking your sensor / you do landscape photography / you do product shot where you want every part of your product to visible.
So why do I think that it is so hard to go for the good depth of field ?
It was basically hard for me to go for lower aperture ( bigger f) just because the first thing you absolutely love when you buy your first photography gear is to go for you lowest f and get this amazing portrait with a totally blurred background. And it gets so addicted that you start spending your first thousands on euros just to get those amazing lens with zoom and f2,8.
Just as examples :
- RF 15-35mm f2,8 = 2500€…
- RF 70-200mm f2,8 = 2850€…
- in comparison : RF 70-200mm f4 = 1800€
( important to note : you can also find none zoom lenses with super wide aperture and much cheaper like RF 50mm f1.8 = 230€)
So when you are in this situation, where you realize that a crazy (and expensive) blur won’t be your best ally you have this deep hesitation before gobig for f5,6 for example. Simply because this shot becomes an accessible shot for most of the gear 🥲. It feels in a way a bit less unique.
I know it sounds very primitive 😂 and once you do your first shot with the exact good depth of field that perfectly tells your story you totally forget about it and enjoy the amazing versatility of those lenses.
Did you had the same feeling when you first had to decrease your aperture ? Did you had this feeling to drive a Ferrari in a place limited at 50km/h ? 🤣
That’s funny sometimes how gear can develop you photography style but also lock it sometimes. After buying more professional types of gears I really had to adapt the way I was thinking and making pictures because sometimes the size, the value, the complexity of those things can limit your creativity.
That’s also why you have to practice a lot, in many different conditions, to make sure that you take back the control and can express your creative vision leaving tools at their simple nature of tools.
Tell me about you did you also had this “low aperture syndrome”
Let’s talk tech :
As you can see in this picture I wanted to have a sharp subject but also leave the viewer the opportunity to understand what she is looking at. The f5,6 helped to maintain a very visible bridge on he right for example.
When I look at the other parameters I see that I potentially made a little mistake. I could have lower iso with a slower shutter speed. For exemple here with a non moving subject 1/500s would have been very good. This little twist could have give and even sharper picture.