Understanding Depth of Field for Beginners

Whenever talking about photography and camera, the words aperture and depth of field will often come out. There are many technical aspects to photography which can seem daunting to the beginner photographer, and depth of field is one the which causes much confusion.

Well in this article 99inspiration will try to help you understand aperture and depth of field so it is quite obvious to the novice.

Understanding the Aperture

Definition aperture is a measure of how much open lens (aperture) when we take photos.

When we pressed the shutter button, the hole in front of the camera sensor we will open, well-aperture setting that determines how big the hole is open. The larger the hole open, the more light will enter the number read by the sensor.

Aperture or openings expressed in terms of f-stops. Often we read the term openings / 5.6 aperture, the more formal language of photography that can be expressed as f / 5.6. As noted above, the primary function of the aperture is as controlling how big hole open in front of the sensor. The smaller the f-stop number means the bigger the hole is open (and the more the volume of the incoming light), and conversely, the larger the f-stop the smaller the hole open.

So in reality, the aperture setting of f / 2 aperture means far greater than the setting of f / 22, for example (you will often find the terms fully open when I hear chatter photographer). So wide aperture means the smaller the number of its the f and narrow openings may mean a higher the f number.

Understanding Depth of Field

Depth of field – DOF, is a measure of how much the focal plane in the photo. Depth of Field (DOF) wide means most of the picture object (from the nearest object from the camera to the furthest object) will look sharp and focused. While DOF narrow (shallow) means only part of the object at any given point sharp while the rest will blur / focus.

To get a broad DOF use a small aperture setting, for example f-22 (the smaller the aperture wider focal distance) – see example right photo. Meanwhile, to get a narrow DOF, use aperture as large as possible, eg f / 2 – see sample left photo.

The concept of Depth of Field will be more useful, especially in portrait photography and Macro Photography, but actually all specialties will be needed.