hi guys welcome and welcome back today we're here to talk all about
depth of field so buckle up because this one's going to be a fast but fun one
okay so we've got Beanie and Alfie with us today who are going to be our superstar little models
Beanie can you come sit good girl so we've got both of these two little legends with us Beanie's
unlikely to have quite the level of concentration that Alfie has and we've also got with us a tape
measure which is 60 meters in length because it's going to help to illustrate the concepts
i'm going to discuss today now we have literally got less than 30 minutes before we lose the light
that's here and i would like to actually take some portraits so i'm going to be keeping this as short
as physically possible now the reason why we're going to talk about depth of field today and why
we've brought our two dogs to a woodland location is because this is where it kind of comes into its
own and is useful i see so many misconceptions that aperture your f number is the only thing
that controls the depth of field and actually it couldn't be further from the truth most of
the professional portrait dog photographers around the world usually shoot exclusively wide open or
very close to wide open on the lenses yet they can still get multiple dogs in focus the whole
dog in focus the dog and the scene in focus they want to illustrate the different things
that are involved in making sure that your depth of field is what you want it to be okay so we're
going to cover off the three things that affect depth of field and we're also going to talk
quickly first about what depth of field actually is if you're new here then hi i'm Jess i'm a
pretty decent portrait photographer based out of England i photograph mainly animals
but also other stuff as well if you would like to do consider hitting the subscribe button hit the
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what is depth of field well depth of field is that tiny little slither of focus that happens
throughout your image so wherever you put your focus point and the camera grabs focus your depth
of field is the depth in measured increments usually inches or centimeters of that chunk of
focus now that is different from the focus point and the focus distance so we're going to cover off
all of those different bits and pieces today as quickly as possible with a tape measure so
i'm going to lay out the tape measure from here which is where i'm going to shoot from today all
the way up the track i would probably be usually choosing a flatter track with a bit more to it but
this is what we've got here today so i'm going to roll out this tape measure and then we'll discuss
okie coke guys so hopefully you can see through my screen i'm right at the start
of this tape measure and it goes all the way up for about 50 meters all the way up there okay
so guys basically i'm on a 135 mm lens and you guys can see the settings that i'm using at the
moment Beanie's about to enter the frame so you can see in terms of like sizes that's what we're
working with and we're going to explore depth of field by using an f number of 2.8 and that's
what we're going to stick at for today okay so if the bag is the photographer in this instance
and we walk down this 50 meter line Alfie's going to stay there because he's an absolute legend okay
the further we go from the bag the photographer in this instance that's called the focus distance
so at the moment the focus distance is 20 foot 5 meters that's the focus distance and the depth of
field at this this level is going to be changing depending on two things your focal length and
your f number okay because the distance is fixed the wider the lens the wider the field of view
okay the larger the depth of field regardless of the f number okay so it could be f2 and it will
still be bigger because it's a wider lens that it would be a f2 on a longer lens okay so it's
irrelevant the wider the lens the larger the depth of field regardless of the aperture the
aperture the f number is also going to come into consideration here so that is going to
have an impact on the depth of field in here but the main thing that's having the biggest impact
is actually the distance that six meter point makes the biggest difference regardless of the
lens regardless of the aperture so if we were to move down the line to about 20 meters for example
which we will do or do that with a dog because that's far more interesting than me
if we were to move down to 20 meters because we've extended the focus distance i.e the distance from
the photographer the camera bag and the subject at 20 meters down the line because that's got bigger
the depth of field has also got bigger regardless of the focal length regardless of the aperture so
you've got three things that control depth of field aperture focal length and the distance
from the camera okay your focus distance now we've talked about how to get blurry backgrounds
before i'll link to that video above i've also talked about how to take a portrait before
i'll link to that video above as well after the other one's been linked but what we're going to do
now is we're going to set up a dog and i'm going to show you what happens in camera using one lens
which is a fixed focal length so it's all at 135 ml we're going to use the same aperture f 2.8
all the way through and we're just going to move the subject along these meter points and i'll tell
you what meter point they are so i think let's get Alfie into the shot let's get a squeaky ball let's
get some snacks and let's shoot okay so i've got my aperture set at f 2.8 i'm just going to use i'm
just going to use auto ISO and i'm just going to set my shutter speed to 1/320th of a second ish
which is about two times and a little bit extra on 135 i'm going to put Alfie first at six meters
so i'm going to find six meters on my measure which is a bit higgledy piggledy here it is in
fact i'll pop him at five meters because we'll go for a nice round number now Alfie come i want
his eyes on five meters it is helpful when you've got a well-trained dog down back up down come down
pretty close wait down good wait so that's about five meters i've set him just to the side
of the measure i'm going to go back to the end so i'm gonna be starting at zero centimeters
and i'm gonna be shooting him down the track so you guys will be able to see through my screen at
the moment and i'm going to just focus grabbing focus on his eye and shoot good boy Alfie wait
perfect good boy wait so that's at six meters we'll assess these images in a sec five meters
sorry i'm going to go and put him at 10 meters so he's now 10 meters from me i'm going to stay
in the same place as fast as physically possible and i'm going to focus remember i'm on a 135ml
so i can't zoom in and i'm just going to take a portrait okay so i'm going to take another one
just to make sure i can do the smaller focus point so i'm just going to go and get one
perfect good boy good so i'm going to go and lead him out now i'm going to double that so we're
going to go straight to 20 meters which i think is as long as we need to go on this because i feel
like you guys have already seen the difference so we're just going to take a shot here and you'll
see i've got this strange composition it's just because this is actually the best composition
for the scene right now so that was 5 meters 10 meters and 20 meters at f 2.8 at 135 i'm not
going to change the focal length today but what i'm going to do is change the aperture so that
you can see the difference in the actual images shot so i'm going to change my aperture to f8
so i'm going to lose quite a lot of light by being at f8 but you should be able to see the difference
so again i wouldn't usually shoot like this because it's too dark here realistically my ISO
is going to be pushed but we'll go with it anyway so you guys can see the depth of field difference
where's the ball where is the ball
oh okay so we're going to put him we're going to be shooting at f8 i've just switched so we're
going to be doing that we're going to be putting him at six meters again so i'm going to find
no five meters five meters which is here come down
superstar come come close back down back down back down good that's perfect
absolute spot on there Dan's gonna move out the way so that he's not in the shot
i'm going to shoot exactly from my point again try and get a similar shot
if i can super ready Alf wow ah we'll go with it right so he did just break his weight but we're
going to ignore it because we ignore negative behavior and we praise good behavior i'm going
to find my 10 meter point so pop him at the 10 meter point he's going to wait there because
he's a legend golden arrow is going to be gorgeous so again f8 trying to compose a similar shot here
i'm wobbly and then 20 meters Dan do you want to go and position him
Dan's going to put him at 20 meters i'm at my point with Dan in shot because you know why not
i'm so wobbly sorry guys oh my goodness what was that likely to be my shutter speed okay
okay so guys that is like my little mini master class on depth of field so remember
what controls it distance from the subject to the camera okay that controls the depth of field
then you've also got your aperture the smaller the f number the smaller the depth of field and you also
have your focal length so the longer the lens the smaller the depth of field so for the best
blurry backgrounds with some golden hour sun like we've got behind us here you want to
be using a really small f number okay you want to be using a longer lens so something longer than 85ml
maybe even more than that in this case you've got the 135mm and you also want to be making
sure that the subject is close to you so not too far away because what that's going to do is it's
going to increase the depth of field i'm going to go and confiscate a ball so that's it for today i'll
show you some pictures at the end and i'll see you guys again really really really soon p.s if
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