Shallow depth of field

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Permalink Reply by Damon libby on October 22, 2009 at 5:21pm

you can do it in photoshop it you dont have a fast lens. Get Martin Evenings Photoshop cs3 book and he explains all in there.

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Permalink Reply by Craig Monroe on October 22, 2009 at 5:43pm

Thanks for the reply Damon.
I've done that using software. An example
here

I was more looking for the correct f/stop and/or shutter speed settings to get as much as possible. I achieved that somewhat here. But unfortunately, it was not manually done ;-)

Thanks again,

Craig

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Permalink Reply by Ian Phillips-McLaren on October 22, 2009 at 9:26pm

Hi Craig

The proper way to get a shallow depth of field is buy using the aperture setting on your camera or lens i.e. if you have a fast lens with the highest aperture setting of say f2.8. you'd then set your aperture to between f2.8 and say f4.5 to get a shallow depth of field. You are physically opening the aperture in the lens as wide as it goes to let more light in which gives you that shallow depth of field. Hence the saying shooting wide open.

In order to achieve the shallow depth of field that you're after move in closer to your subject and or use a longer lens.

The shutter speed is irrelevant and has no effect on the depth of field what so ever.

I hope this helps

Ian

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Permalink Reply by Craig Monroe on October 22, 2009 at 9:36pm

That does! Great explanation, thank you!

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Permalink Reply by Ian Phillips-McLaren on October 22, 2009 at 10:42pm

pleasure.

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