Hello, everyone, my name is Danielle and i'm coming to you from Jaci's Lodges
in Madikwe game reserve in South Africa.
In today's video, I'll be talking about how to use depth of field to your advantage.
How you can control it to make your images look much more professional and make it "pop"!
So let's get into it.
It's a question that my guests often ask me... how do you make the image look so professional?
How do you blur the background? How do you make your subject pop? How do you separate your animal from
its background? All of those questions have to do with the depth of field.
There are various ways of making image pop but depth of field is definitely one of them and there are various ways that you can
control depth of field to use it to your advantage. Now, what is depth of field?
Depth of field is the distance between where your focus starts in an image and where your focus ends.
So when you focus on the animal, say on the animal's eye, you'll see focus trailing off in front and focus trailing off
behind and the distance between the sharp focus where it starts and where it ends behind the subject.
That is your depth of field and you want to control that to get more professional looking images.
There are 4 ways which I'm going to mention which you can use to control your
depth of field. You won't necessarily be using all 4 every time on the same subject - you'll
use a combination of them. That usually works best. So the first way to control your depth of field
and to blur your background (as it's commonly said) is by decreasing the distance
between yourself and your subject. So by going closer to something by going closer to the animal
you decrease your depth of field and you get a nice blurry background and foreground. Don't forget
about the foreground. The foreground is often used as a blur to lead your eye into the image.
So if you can go closer and it's safe. So you can drive closer if you're on a game
drive you can walk closer if you're on foot in Botswana we're on boats and we drift into the
sighting to get a bit closer. If it's possible and if you're if your composition allows then
get closer to your subject and you'll blur your background more. You'll decrease your depth of field more.
The second way of controlling your depth of field is by decreasing the distance
between the subject and its background. So how do you do that if you can't move the elephant closer
to you and further from its background? Well, you can change your angle, if it's possible. So if you
have a choice between shooting the animal from this angle and there's a tree right behind it
or if you have a choice of moving angle and there's a distant background that's further away.
Then choose the distant background to isolate your subject more from its background.
Obviously, you have to look at your lighting as well you have to decide if it is still going
to fit in with the lighting that I'm getting on the animal,
or on the subject. So if your lighting still agrees and you don't have to compromise
on the lighting then change your angle slightly and choose a background that's further away
and that'll make the background blur more. This is often why we shoot low because when you're
shooting from above into an animal into the ground. Down on an animal. Then you're shooting into
the ground behind it and the background is very close. The ground is very close if you go low you're
shooting along the water when you're shooting along the ground and it's it's often much better
to get that distant trailing off effect of the background blur. As an example for the background
that's further away from the subject. This is a good example we arrived at these Bee eaters and
you know they were beautifully positioned flying around sitting on this the stick
but unfortunately, the background was quite close. The bank behind them was just too close.
Even stopping down on the f-stop we still unfortunately had a background that was in
focus and not separating the subject well from the background. So eventually we asked
the guide can we please get off. We were in Namibia so we could get off the boat and walk around and
eventually we walked around and the light still allowed us to get a beautiful image from the side
shooting along the bank. Actually using the bank leading your eye into the subject
and getting that beautiful distant background blurring perfectly behind the bee-eaters.
As an example of the background being close or far away. This monitor the rock monitor we
shot from the vehicle so we had no choice to shoot down on it because it was quite close to us... so the
angle was quite an extreme angle that we shot at a high angle and we were shooting right into
the ground behind it. The light was good so I took the shot but it just demonstrates the difference
between having the background close to it like in this example where you can't really isolate
it well against the background versus this example where the monitor (it's a different monitor it's a
water monitor) the monitor is shot at eye level. So we were on the boat here and we could all go down
onto the side and shoot from the side of the boat and shoot along the ground
causing the background to be further away from the subject which resulted in a beautiful
background blur. Which results in isolating the subject really well against the background.
The third way to control your depth of field is by using a longer focal length.
So use a bigger zoom or choose a lens with a bigger zoom. That's basically what it comes down to.
The longer your focal length the shallower your depth of field will be so if you zoom in
with your zoom lens you'll get a more blurred background and foreground and or if you choose
to use a lens with a longer focal length a bigger zoom then you'll also get a decreased depth of field.
Right, so have a look over here. The first shot was taken at 200 mm focal length.
So we were sitting. We didn't change our position. We didn't change focus. I didn't change f-stop or
anything. The only difference between this shot and the next shot is the focal length. So keep
your eye on the background and you'll see this was the background at 200 mm and in this next
shot it was taken at 420 mm and you'll see that the background blurs much more.
So that's because I'm at a longer focal length. Yes the lens has a little bit of an effect on it too but the
focal length is what I want to demonstrate here. A longer focal length will give you a shallower
depth of field compared to a shorter focal length. So that's the difference. Same scene. Same aperture.
Same distance from the little lion cubs and that's the difference that you get in your
image blurred background with a longer focal length and a less of a blurred background with
the shorter focal length. So decide which one you want if you wanted to pop more
then use the longer focal length. If it fits the situation that you're in.
The last way of controlling your app your depth of field is by aperture so that's the obvious way is by going
down on your f-stop. By going down on your f-number you are increasing your aperture and therefore
you are decreasing your depth of field. So if you are shooting with a background and it's too busy
then just stop down from say f8 to f5.6 or f4. If you want a nice blurry background and foreground,
and that's a nice way of isolating your subject against its background. So, those are the four ways
of controlling depth of field and using it to your advantage to get more professional-looking images.
Don't use all four at the same time. It's not often that you'll use all four at the same time maybe at
some point but just keep them in mind and use them where appropriate. I hope you found that
tutorial to be helpful in controlling your depth of field and popping your subject out from the
background and please remember to subscribe to our channel and hit the bell icon to get
notifications about when our next videos are available to watch. I'll see you again soon bye.