In this video I'll show you how to
maximize the feeling of
"Shallow Depth of Field"
when shooting shallow depth of field portraits.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey and you're
watching AdoramaTV,
brought to you by Adorama, the
camera store that's got everything for us
photographers and today you join me in
my small home studio for another
portrait shoot. Now this time I'm going
to do portraits with a shallow depth of field
but this video is all about taking
the "Shallow Depth of Field" and making it
look and feel as shallow as possible. Now
to do that I've got some great hints
and tips coming up but let's talk
lighting very briefly.
I'll be using a Speedlight, the Olympus FL 900R
as my speedlight
because I want to use high-speed
sync and to make that work with Olympus
I need to use a little tiny Olympus
flash on my EM1 Mark II. Now if you don't
want to use high-speed sync but you want
to do this technique, check out my
previous video on the Adorama Learning
Center where I show you how to use flash
with wide apertures in a bright room
and you can use any type of flash
you like and still get the same results.
Right let's get some lights set. Let's get
a model in. Let's get shooting.
So today I've been joined in the studio by Jade,
who's going to be the model for this
shoot as we look at different ways of
getting great shallow depth of field shots.
Now I'm going to start with the
lens because fairly obviously you want
to have a fast lens with a wide aperture
and I'm going to be using the Olympus 25mm
f1.2 which is the
equivalent of a 50mm lens on a
full frame camera.
I'll be wide open, f1.2 aperture or whatever the widest
aperture is. The smaller the number, the
smaller the depth of field. That's the
best way to remember it.
Next thing to do to really maximize your
depth of field is think about the background.
Now I've got my standard black background here
which looks great in the shots but is it
the best for depth of field?
Let's have a look.
Alright, Jade, let's just take a
shot, here we go.
And as you can see that looks like a really
nice portrait of jade but
there's no sense of depth in the
background. That black background could be in focus, it could be out of focus.
It's impossible to tell.
So behind my black
background is my favorite wall
and that has texture and if you can have
texture in your shots, well, that's going
to be more interesting than just black
or just white. So let's get Jade back in
again. And again, if you can go back where
you were, perfect. I'm going to take
exactly the same shot. The only thing
that's changed is the background.
Here we go.
That's great.
I suppose when I say
texture what I really mean is pattern.
It's the fact that this pattern is
blurry in the background that gives this
image so much more depth than the last
one. If it was just white, black, grey or
any blank color you'd really not get
this sense of depth.
So that worked
really well, but what about the distance
between the model and the background?
Well the further you get the distance
the more the background will be blurred.
So let's change it and see what happens
if we get Jade closer. So if you want to
go back against the background. That's
perfect. Now if Jade moves back I have to
move the light back and let's take the
shots like that,
and as you can see those
are still blurry in the background,
because the shallow depth of field will
do that but it's not as blurry. Now which
of these is better? Well that's entirely
up to you. You're the photographer.
You're making the artistic decision on how
blurry you want your background to be.
You can enhance the look and feel of
your shallow depth of field shots with a
little bit of posing work as well
working with a model like Jade who's an
expert at posing makes this so much
easier, but I've got some really simple
tips that will work for everyone.
Now normally when you ask someone to sit
they will sit like this. Let's just take
a picture and see how this looks.
Okay, Jade here we go.
And it looks really nice,
nothing wrong with that. We've got a
lovely, blurry background, we've got a sharp
Jade and what I'm going to ask Jade to do
is just to lean in to the shot now the
more she leans in the more depth I'm
going to get from her nose to the back of
her body and that's going to be
reflected in our depth of field shot, so
if you lean in for me, Jade.
However, when Jade leans in, what happens?
Well, she falls out of the light, so
remember if your model moves, you might
have to move your light as well.
So there's another way you can use posing
and that's to get
yourself elevated, compared to your
model. So you're shooting down on to
them. Now, for this case because I have a
fairly small studio, we had to get Jade
to sit down on the floor and I need my
ladder just to get myself a little bit
taller. So we've moved the light around as
well and hopefully this should give us
some nice shallow depth of field shots.
Let's give this a whirl.
Another great way of adding depth of
field effect to your shots is by having
some foreground as well as background
interest. Now, if you saw my previous
video where I discussed shooting with
flash and shallow depth of field, you'll
know I use the wall in my studio for
great effect for a Shallow Depth of
Field look. Now, if you haven't seen that,
go check out the Adorama Learning Center
where you can watch that again. But if you
don't have a lovely textured wall like
me, well what about a little bit of
fabric? So I've got some rather nice kind
of semi-translucent fabric. It doesn't
have to be, but you wouldn't be able to
see through if we had it as a solid fabric.
Let's just take a shot like this to see
how that looks.
Now what you'll see I'm doing is,
I'm getting myself right up
against the fabric. The closer I can get
in, the more it's going to be in the
foreground of my shot and the more
de-focused that's going to be, the more blurry and the
more interesting the shot will be.
Turn your head around,
so pop your back up against, yeah, that's it.
So we're going to put this all into
practice by getting Jade to learn forward
and just for the fun of it we're going
to add a little bit of wind into the
scene as well and hopefully get some
great shots.
So, is everybody ready?
Okay, let's take some pictures.
Let's set this first before we get the wind machine.
Okay yes, we are good to go.
So Jade, look towards the light for me.
That's great.
Well that really was fantastic fun,
Shallow Depth of Field portraits one of
my favorite techniques and it's
something that works so well in a small
home studio.
Now, of course, if you like
this technique and you want to see more
then you've got to click on the
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videos from myself and the other amazing
presenters right here on AdoramaTV. And if you
enjoyed it, leave a comment below. I'm
Gavin Hoey, thanks for watching!