DEPTH OF FIELD PHOTOGRAPHY

Depth of Field Photography Technique!

How To Take Good Photos

Depth of field photography is an important technique to make your photos nicer!

Many new photographer have trouble with the important concepts of exposure in photography, and end up getting vexed with photographs that they consider to be of poor quality. Unfortunately, because some photographers use the automatic modes that their cameras have, the pictures turn out less than ideal.

Outdoor family shoot

What is Aperture

Aperture, as we know it to be, is the part of the camera that controls the amount of light allowed into the sensor. This light affects many different variables of an image and not only adds dimension to photographs by blurring the background, but also alters the exposure of images by increasing or decreasing the level of brightness.

Think about how your eyes work. As you move between bright and dark environments, the iris in your eyes either expands or shrinks, thus controlling the size of your pupil. In the context of photography, the “pupil” of the camera lens is called aperture. The aperture can be adjusted to either shrink or be enlarged to allow for more or less light to reach the camera sensor.

How Aperture Affects Exposure

How photographs turn out is mainly due to aperture. One of the most important factors is the brightness, or exposure of images. As aperture changes in size, the overall amount of light that eventually reaches the camera sensor is changed, hence adjusting the brightness of the image.

A large aperture (a wide opening) will allow a lot of light to pass through, resulting in a brighter photograph. On the other hand, a small aperture make a photograph darker because of the smaller allowance of light into the camera sensor.

Aperture Effect on Brightness

When the surrounding is dark, for instance, indoors, or at night, a larger aperture would be recommended to capture as much light into the photograph as possible. Taking on the example of your eyes, this is the same reason why pupils dilate when it starts to get dark, to allow for as much light to enter the iris as possible.

How Aperture Affects Depth of Field

Aperture also affects the depth of field, which is the amount of clarity and focus that certain objects within a photograph have. Some images appear sharp from the front to back, depending on which part of the photograph the camera lens is focused on. However, others have a “thin” or “shallow” depth of field, where the background appears completely out of focus. Other images have a “large”or “deep” depth of field, where both the foreground and background are sharp.

The Effects of Large vs Small Aperture

A large aperture would result in a shallow focus effect. With a smaller aperture, the entire photo from front to back might have appeared sharp, and without any clear out-of-focus background. An easier way to remember this relationship is perhaps the most direct way - a large aperture results in a large amount of background blur. This is often used for portraits or landscape that focuses on the objects in the foreground.

A small aperture results in a small amount of background blur, which typically is ideal for things like landscape.

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