The Essentials - Focus

The Previous Article in the series was "The Essentials - Photography Exposure"

As we saw in the previous article, our eyes focus and adjust to brightness very quickly when we look at something. In photography, things are very similar.

Most modern cameras have automatic lenses so we don’t have to worry about setting the focus. Nevertheless, it’s worth knowing how lenses work so that we can set up a manual camera correctly if we need to and for one other very important reason - DEPTH OF FIELD.

Knowing about Depth of Field and how to use it can make the difference between a so so snapshot and an outstanding photograph.

Compare photos 1 of 2 and 2 of 2 -

Notice how the iris flower in photo 1 doesn’t stand out against the background, like the one in photo 2.

These photographs were taken using the same camera in the same position, within a few seconds of one another. The foreground and background of the one in photo 2 is much more blurred, and therefore less distracting, than the one in photo 1.

Composition, lighting and exposure are the same for both shots but by knowing how to control Depth of Field, we can vary the appearance of the final image.

If your camera allows you to adjust the aperture, try photographing the same scene using the largest aperture (low number such as f2.8) and the smallest aperture (high number such as f22.0). If your camera does not allow you to adjust the aperture in this way, it might have settings for subject type; such as "Portrait" and "Landscape" - using these will give you similar results.

How is it that the same lens on the same camera can produce such different results?

This article is an extract from the original which goes into more detail about the third dimension - Depth of Field.

The Next Article in the series will be "The Next Step to Better Photographs - Practice ..."