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Being a wedding and portrait photographer in the Lancaster area is very competitive. So, you really need to know all the tricks of the trade. One of the main things that I like to feel sets me apart is how I control my depth of field (DOF) while photographing weddings and portraits. So, what is depth of field exactly and how does one control it? Depth of field is simply the portion of a scene that appears sharp and in focus. This is largely controlled by the aperture of the camera. However it is also controlled by the relative distance that you are from your subject. The DOF is said to be on  a plane in the image. No, we’re not talking about photographing those big shiny things that fly in the sky. We are also not talking about trying to blur the background in Photoshop. That doesn’t really work the same way and personally I don’t think it looks very good. I can always pick it out when I see people using Photoshop to try and create DOF. Think of it like it like a deck of cards, one of the cards is a flat plane looking down through the side of the deck. You can increase how many of those cards you’d like to be in focus by simply moving closer or by using a lens with a longer focal length and/or by having a smaller DOF.

Now, a larger DOF will result in more depth of field in your image. This is noted as a larger number aperture on your camera or lens, such as f/16 or f/22. If you were photographing that same deck of cards, at f/22 you would probably have the entire set in focus. Whereas a small DOF such as f/2.8 or f/1.4 will result in a shallow depth of field or only having a small plane in focus. Lenses with a small aperture may also be called “Fast Glass” because you can shoot with a faster shutter speed, typically. In this case a aperture setting of f/1.4 would only have one card in that deck in focus. Below is a picture I took during this past winter using f/11. Because I had a very wide angle lens on, I only needed f/11 to get the entire scene in focus. This is because my relative distance is greater due to the amount of the scene I was trying to capture. Had I been using a telephoto lens and zoomed into the foreground tree, f/11 would not have been enough to keep the background trees in in focal plane and they would appear blurry or out of focus.

I typically try to shoot with a shallow or small DOF to try and isolate my subject from the background or just to simply show depth in a photo. However when I’m photographing landscapes and sometimes nature, I like to use a larger DOF, however I don’t usually tend to go larger than f/11 or f/16. Mainly because when you start getting in that range, unless it’s a bright sunny day out, you really need to use a tripod. Because the larger you make the aperture, the less light will be coming into your camera. This means you’ll need to dial down your shutter speed to compensate for the situation you’re in. People always ask, “what where your camera settings for a specific situation?” I typically answer by saying I like to shoot with a small aperture but every situation is different. You’ll need to figure out your shutter speed and ISO when you’re in your own particular situation. In the photo below I really wanted to focus on the rings and one branch of the bush, but I wanted color through the whole image so I made sure to use f/2.8 (because it was as low as I could go on this lens) then got fairly close and allowed the rest of the bush behind to blur out. Keep in mind the rest of the bush was only inches behind the branch that I was photographing, but by knowing how to control my DOF I was able to blur it out while on the scene.