In this video, I'm gonna give you three
simple compositional rules and
guidelines when it comes to how to use
depth of field.
My name is Pye and I'm
one of the founders of Lin and Jirsa
Photography and SLRlounge.com.
We're teaming up with Adorama to bring you a
new series of photography tutorials
called Master Your Craft, right here on
Adorama TV, so let's dive in.
What's up my friends,
welcome back to another episode
here on AdoramaTV,
and look if you don't
already know by now,
I'm a huge fan of kind of creating
guides and frameworks and simple rules
to help photographers understand why we
do a certain thing, and in this video
we're gonna be talking about some simple
compositional rules when it comes to
controlling depth of field, specifically
when should we shoot wide open, when do
we shoot more closed down, and when do we
want to go somewhere in between.
Let's kick this off with rule or guideline
number 1, with busy backgrounds, or even
backgrounds that are necessarily not so
desirable, that's generally when we're
gonna shoot wide open with our apertures.
So this is where we want to pop those
Prime's on and shoot at f/1.2. if you got it
f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.0,
f/2.8, any of those wider apertures because
what we want to do is create separation
and depth between our subject and
background, let me show you exactly what
I'm talking about.
So this first example here...
this is an image that I would say
is shot on a busy background, it's not
necessarily unwanted by any means,
there's nothing bad in this background, I
love having kind of backgrounds of grass,
this looks beautiful, but the only thing
is with a closed-down aperture, if you
were to see all those blades of grass it
can become very distracting, so
oftentimes in scenes like this, I'm
shooting a little bit wider now, this is
actually on a lens that can go out to
f/1.4, this is on a 105 Prime Sigma Art Lens.
I'm actually shooting
this at f/2.8 because that gives me enough
depth and separation in the background, I
love the way it kind of falls out of
focus, and it doesn't give me so narrow a
focus that I can't even tell, you know
her hands are holding a branch in front
of her, this next scene is an example of
kind of an undesirable background, I mean
we're shooting in a parking lot for
crying out loud, you got a
curb, you've got weird bushes, and a fence
and a closed down railroad track right
behind him, it's stuff that I don't
necessarily want in focus.
The Sigma 50 that's on the the 5D IV and I'm shooting
this at f/1.4 because I want that
background to be as soft and
out-of-focus as possible, and I'm also
using another trick here which is to
underexpose the scene which also helps
to kind of eliminate those distractions,
but again shoot wide open okay, another
example is this scene, and it's not
necessarily again, this is a beautiful
location, a beautiful spot, I would
classify this again though as a little
bit busy, because if I were to shoot this
with the buildings and everything in
focus, you're gonna end up seeing a lot
of tops of warehouses, so again shooting
f/1.4 wide open on a Sigma 50 Art on this
shot, this is an example from a recent
wedding that I photographed, where you
know you had a lot of people around us
actually in these corners, if it were
brighter and if it were In focus, you could
probably see people working, so not only
do I not want to necessarily see those
tables, I want to focus that entire
viewers experience on really this munde
up, the the the ceremony kind of
structure, and the flowers and everything
around them, and on the couples, so again
in this scene where I feel like it's
rather busy, I want to be shooting at say
f/1.4, this is on a 24 mm Sigma Art Lens,
so rule number two is
when we're working in beautiful
backgrounds, there's really not
necessarily a reason to shoot wide open.
I mean if you like the look stylistically,
that's totally fine, but the better the
background, the better the scene,
the better environment the less we
have to do to manipulate to make it look
good, so when I get to a beautiful scene
like this one in Hawaii, I'm shooting
this at 1/200th , f/7.1 and ISO 100 because
I do want depth in the scene, I want to
be able to see everything behind them,
it's absolutely a gorgeous vista and I
even want those foreground leaves to be
in focus.
I want everything about this shot to be
visible to the audience, so we're
shooting this closed down at f/7 okay, so
for this next shot this is my son Ethan,
and he's learning how to fly, I'm
teaching him how to fly my drone, and if
you wanna, you know send this image out
to DJI cuz it's like licensed oblique
good, is that a word, licensed oblique good?
But yeah,
feel free, do so, I'd love to, DJI I'd love to
work with you, anyway, so I loved
everything about this, you can see how
I've kind of framed it where the horizon
lines of the mountains kind of lead into
him, we have this beautiful sunlight in
the background, this field, I want the, the
drone to be in focus once again, there's
no reason here to be shooting this
wide-open, shooting this wide-open I
really lose the depth that I want to
preserve in this type of a photograph.
Especially in the foreground, especially
in the drone itself, I wanted the DJI
logo to actually be readable, it doesn't
need to be perfectly even focused, but I
actually wanted to be readable so you
know just in case, just in case but
anyway let's go on to another one, so
this is an example of let's say if
you're shooting weddings, and you've got
a scene with a lot of depth, and also the
background looks really nice, now if
there were cars lined up on the street
in the background, I probably would say
let's not shoot this, you know close down,
let's not shoot this, let's get this more
wide open, so we can kind of blur that
out a little bit more, but again I love
the boats in the background, the whole
environment, and I need these rows of
chairs to be in focus, my rule of thumb
when it comes to scenes like this, if
you're shooting a scene like this where
you want you know, most, most of these
chairs, kind of, they don't to be tack
sharp, but you want it visible and in focus.
I'm usually shooting around between f/7
and f/11, and here's the deal take your
focus and place it on, I'll usually kind
of find that that primary featured item
deep into the shot, so that's in this
case is the Munda, it's the alter - right
so I'm placing the focus over that and
I'm allowing the the aperture, the depth
of field to carry forward and get as
much of these chairs in focus, as well as
carry backwards to the background, I find
this to be much better than if you were
to say focus on these foreground chairs
in the front, because you might get a
little bit more sharpness out of these
foreground chairs, but what's gonna
happen is the background of the depth is
gonna fall off real quick, so in a scene
like this focus deep into the shot at
that kind of infinity point, or just kind
of on the horizon, and let the camera, let
the aperture pull everything forward, you
can always do focus stacking, but when
you're working in like a you know, high paced
scene like this, a high pace environment,
you don't necessarily want to stop on a tripod to do a
focus stack image, you want to just close
it down, get a shot that's great, that
works, and move on, but if you're doing
landscapes though
stacking is the best option for that.
Okay here's another example this is up in
Banff, and I just saw the sun peeking out
of these trees, and I loved the way it
looked, and again this is another little
tip and trick here, right, I want the Sun
flare to actually form into a little bit
of starburst, so in addition to wanting
an overall sharp image which by the way
when we start closing down the aperture
a little bit, when we get to let's say
that the lens is wide open at f/28,
well usually your sharpest apertures are
gonna be around f/5.6, f/7.1, f/11 that's one
of the considerations, and in the scene
I'm like you know what, everything's
beautiful, I want everything in focus, I
also want this image to be tack sharp,
and on top of that I know that by
closing down my aperture, I'm gonna
create a starburst pattern of any flares
so we go to f/7.1 in this shot, and we
shoot this image.
Rule number three is...
when we're trying to work with foregrounds,
and do a little bit of depth in
our shot and preserve a little bit of
foreground and background depth, I want
you to think somewhere in between okay,
oftentimes we get in the mindset of like
oh no if I want that depth I got to
shoot this wide open, but look this is a
shot on the 105 Art right?
So this prime can go to f/1.4,
and if I shoot this image
at f/1.4, my foreground is literally gonna
be just a big blob. I want to see kind of
an implied a portrait, an implied
profile of the male subject in this shot.
If I shoot wide open, I'm gonna lose that
again if I go all the way to f7 at f11,
then I see too much of him, and I also
see too much of the background, so when
we start to use foreground and
background elements to create depth, I
want you to think in between.
So this is an f/4, similarly this is that
same kind of grass scene right,
kind of like in the last one where we were
shooting at f/2.8.
I was kind of testing out my, my
apertures in this, because I want some of
the blades of grass to be sort of sharp,
but I also want that beautiful fall-off
in the background, so instead of going to
f/1.4, I'm shooting this around f/2.0
- I noticed that f/2.8 and this distance
to our subject, we were getting a little
bit too much, I was losing some of that
softness that I wanted in the
background, so we went to f/2.0, this is that
exact same scene that you saw, just a
moment ago in Banff right, only this time
I saw some really great frozen branches
and I was like - man that'd be beautiful
just for another shot, to kind of create
a shoot through of really almost the
same scene, but we're gonna make this
kind of cabin sort of the emphasis of
this shot, and we're gonna shoot kind of
the same thing, but now with these
branches framing the entire shot, once
again if I shoot this image at f/2.8, those
branches become almost unintelligible.
You can tell what they are, other than
just blurry objects in front of the lens.
Again it also matters how close you are
to these different objects right, but if
I go all the way down to f/1.1, f/1,4, f/1.8,
wherever, if I go too far closed down,
then what we end up having is a
foreground that sort of competes, there's
a little bit too much detail, a little
bit too much distraction, and and we kind
of get that right, so once again you're
gonna find the sweet spot, just kind of
raise the aperture up and down using
live view is gonna be one of your best
tricks here, because you're gonna have a
live preview of it, if not just take a shot.
Finally this is another scene, and
in this scene you're gonna see, well now
I'm actually wide open, but I do want
depth in this shot, okay so for the lens
that I'm using here, shooting wide open
and at this distance it gives me a good
amount of depth in the foreground, and I
also actually wanted this very
foreground element right here, this one
right here to be blocking out a piece of
garbage in the background, I think there
was like an outhouse or something right
off to the left of the frame, because the
left the frame is the parking lot, so I
want you guys to keep in mind that your
your distance to your subject, the lens
choice that you're using, so the distance
from the camera to your subject, and the
subject of the background that's gonna
come into play, and that's really my
fourth and final kind of bonus tip here.
So that bonus tip is remembering your
lens, your distance to subject, and
distance to the background are all at
play when it comes to choosing that
ideal aperture, right?
Okay so case in point here,
I have a sample image shot on
a 24-70mm, now when you shoot these types
of images on a 24-70mm wide open even,
f/2.8 okay, so you have a 24-70mm that opens
f/2.8, everything in the image is still
going to be in focus, okay, it might be a
tiny bit soft depending on the lens that
you're using because your f/2.8 versus
let's say f/7.0, it's gonna be more sharp
and more detailed, but everything's in
focus because of the focal length you're
shooting at.
You're shooting wide on that lens,
the lens characteristics itself the
distance we knew, and the subject and the
subject and the background, but this exact
same lens when you start stepping in is
gonna begin to operate differently, let
me show you exactly what I mean, because
this is the exact same lens, it's a
24-70mm, in fact I'm still
working at a wide focal length.
I'm at 24mm, so if you look
at these three shots, you have the widest
shot right here, then closer, then even
closer with that same 14-70mm.
If we're standing further back,
we don't see any depth of field in this
shot, but as we start stepping into our
subject, and we go to these three images
right here, you'll notice that the
background actually starts to separate
quite a bit, even when shooting again
24 mm at f/2.8... so
bringing ourselves closer the subject
exaggerates the characteristics of your
depth of field.
Similarly as I step in a little bit more,
so let's go to that second kind of distance
shot right here,
as we step in a little bit more, you see
even a little bit more fall-off between
the background kind of detail between
the first one and the second one right?
Then if we go to the final shot right, so
here's the final image, now you start to
see the background fall-off, even further,
and we can see that by looking over on
the left side, you can see it get even
softer, so as we get closer and closer to
our subject, the background becomes more
exaggerated, more blurred, this
characteristic holds true for any ,
and no matter what you're shooting right?
If you're shooting macro, whether you're
shooting portraiture, the closer your
distance to your subject, the more that
background begins to kind of blur out
and go out of focus.
It's that relative distance to the subject
and then from the subject to the
background, that's it!
And I hope y'all found this video useful, I
love these little kind of tips tricks
and frameworks, because they make things
easy for me to understand, easy for me to
put into practice, and that's what I want
you guys to do.
Go put into practice,
tell me what you think in the comments below.
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and in the meanwhile see you guys
in the next video.