Ghatahora Photography: depth of field

Showing posts with label depth of field. Show all posts

Friday, 26 June 2020

Selective Focus

In photography terms, 'Selective Focus' means that the photographer chooses which part of the image he/she would want to keep in focus. This could mean that the photographer chooses to keep the foreground in focus, blurring the background. Or keeping the mid ground / background in focus and blurring the rest of the image.

Using selective focus adds mood, drama and dimension to the final image.

It is very easy to create images with selective focus, this effect can be achieved with the use of macro lens, telephoto lenses or changing your depth of field, using a wide aperture anything from f1.4 to f5.6.

Here are a few examples of selective focus images.

Photograph of a wild flower taken in the garden, using a macro lens and fill-in flash

Wild Flower

Photograph of the bird, blurring the background

Lilac breasted roller bird

Photograph of a flower, taken using a macro lens, the point of focus was the centre of the flower

Orange Flower

Photograph of grass reed, taken early in the morning, the point of focus was the flowerhead, blurring the reed

Reed

The photograph below was taken on my mobile phone, by standing very close to the water droplet, the camera lens focused on the droplet and blurring the background. Most mobile phones have 'aperture' mode (which can be found under 'more' in your camera settings), using this setting, it allows you to choose your desired aperture.

Drop of water

The photograph below was also taken using my mobile phone, I selected the 'Aperture' mode on my phone and chose the widest aperture (f4) and focused on the bee.

Bee

The photograph below was taken using a standard lens, the point of focus was the single stem of bluebells

Blue Bells

Selective focus can be used in anywhere your photography; landscapes, street photography, portraits, it really depends what you as a photographer want to show through your photographs, by creating mood and drama to the images.

Bhupinder Ghatahora ABIPP, ARPS, ASWPP

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

Facebook

Saturday, 29 June 2019

Singapore

Photographs taken in Singapore

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

Instagram

Monday, 24 June 2019

What is an Aperture?

Understanding Apertures

What is an Aperture?

Aperture is one of the three main functions in photography along with the shutter and the ISO.

The aperture is a ‘circular hole’ within the lens and is known as the ‘diaphragm’. To create an image, light passes through the ‘diaphragm’ and travels into the camera image sensor/film creating the image. The amount the ‘diaphragm’ is open to allow light through is measured in f-stops, i.e. f2.8, f4, f5.6, f11, f16, etc.

Beginners often get confused on what ‘f’ numbers mean and how they work. As a general rule: the smaller the ‘f’ number, the larger the opening of the aperture. The larger ‘f’ number, the smaller the opening of the aperture.

Therefore, f2.8 is considered as a large aperture. At f2.8 the diaphragm of the lens is larger and allows more light to come through and fall on the image sensor/film.

At f16, the aperture is small. The diaphragm of the lens is small limiting the amount of light passing through the lens and falling on the image sensor/film.

The below diagram shows the aperture in relation to its ‘f’ numbers: (not to scale)

How does the aperture work?

Just think about the human eye; the pupil controls the amount of light passing further into the eye by shrinking or expanding.

The aperture works exactly the same way. The amount of light is controlled by changing the f-stops on the camera. As you can see from the diagram, f2.8 allows much more light in than f32.

If the aperture is changed from one ‘f’ stop ‘either way’, it doubles or halves the size of aperture as well as the amount of light passing through.

Moving from f2.8 to f4 the amount of light is halved.

Moving from f8 to f5.6the amount of light is doubled.

When changing the aperture either way, it also affects the shutter speed (the amount of time the shutter is open) and the ‘Depth of Field’- (DOF is what controls the image sharpness).

Aperture and Focus

Choosing a large ‘f’ number such as f22 or f32 will bring all the foreground and background in focus. This aperture setting is always best to use when you want everything to be sharp and in focus.

This photograph has been taken using f22, as you can see everything is in focus from the foreground to the background.

On the other hand, a small ‘f’ numbers such as f2.8, f4 and f5.6 will blur the background, isolating the subject. This aperture setting is useful to use when you want to have parts of your photograph blurred to add impact as well as for photographing close-ups.

The 1^st photograph has been taken using f2.8, as you can see the purple nail varnish bottle is in focus and the rest of the image is blurred. The 2^nd photograph has been taken on f5.6.

For cameras that do not have aperture mode, use ‘Landscape’ mode for a large DOF.

And for a small DOF use the ‘Close-up’ or the ‘Portrait’ mode.

The aperture adds dimension to the photograph by either blurring the background or keeping everything in focus.

Bhupinder Ghatahora ABIPP, ARPS, ASWPP

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

Facebook

Wednesday, 29 May 2019

Photo story - The Eden Project

These photographs were taken at The Eden Project, Cornwall.

The Eden Project is the world's largest indoor rainforest with many species of plants growing in different climate and environment. The two main enclosures are the two domes next to each other, each housing thousands of different plants. The dome structure is made up of hundreds of hexagon shaped cells supported by steel frames. There is also a botanical garden which is home to many plants and wildlife.

The two domes

View from the foot bridge

The junk monster, made with old appliances

The walk way before the domes

The spider in the pond

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

Instagram

Saturday, 25 May 2019

Street Photography - Around Leicester

Street Photography in Leicester

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

Instagram

Saturday, 11 May 2019

Weekly Project - Snakes

This week's project is on 'Snakes' - All the below photographs have been taken with a trained snake handler present at the shoot. If you decide to photograph snakes or reptiles it is advisable to do so in supervised environment with professional snake handles.