Afternoon guys, so after a vast response I have decided to break my photographic tutorial in to 8 parts. This week I will be covering depth of field (DOF) and Bokeh (blurry backgrounds). The first thing I'm going to say is, none of these tutorials are meant to be condescending or to a strict 'THIS IS HOW YOU PHOTOGRAPH!' At the end of the day, I am a professional photographer, meaning I get paid for my photographs. That doesn't mean I am the best photographer going, or I have the authority to say you are a bad photographer. It just provides me with certain skills that I can pass along to others, as I have experience in this field. I may have acquired bad habits, or not explain things properly. So feel please free to ask questions if you still don't understand something after you have read the tutorial. Again I am doing this based on settings of a DSLR, but most point and shoot camera's have these basic settings nowadays, it is just whether you are able to shoot on manual focus mode (MF) aswell as auto focus mode (AF) with your point and shoot. Again like I say, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in a comment below.
Right, the first thing I am going to kick off with is depth of field (DOF) many people confuse bokeh with depth of field, but they are not the same things. DOF is where you want your main point of interest to be in complete focus and the rest of your picture out of focus, creating a sense of depth and distance between the interest and it's background. The main two things to remember with DOF are, focus and lighting...
Now what I will say is, those little squares you see on your camera when taking a picture are there for a reason, don't ignore them, they have them on normal digital camera's aswell as DSLR's, if you pay attention to the squares you will find you will be able to take a better picture instantly. As you can see in the picture below, my square is aligned and in front of what I want the main focus of my picture to be on, the flower...
So the rest of my background becomes out of focus, and your eye is drawn in to the picture at the point I wanted it to, creating a greater sense of depth of field. Whereas if I had focused my square in a different position, like the picture below, the flower becomes out of focus, and the background in focus...
Which does not create good DOF and in turn creates a bad photograph. If you imagine your picture, and the view finder of your camera as a frame, it gives you a better sense of composition ( how you want your picture to look) so which makes the better photograph, having a blurry foreground or a blurry background? I'm sure you'll agree that a blurry background wins everytime. These same rules apply when shooting portraits and people in photographs, just set the main square on the person's face, and their face will be in focus and their background be out of focus. Although distance in portrait photography plays a great part in creating DOF, if you are just shooting your mate on a bench, the bench would always be in focus too, it would just be the background that would be out of focus. The best way to create great DOF is either in macro (close up shots) or if you are in a vast area and you only want to focus on a small detail of that area.
The main way I create DOF with my flower and nature work is by using the macro setting on my camera, which in most cases looks like a little tulip...
Either that or 90% of the time I shoot in manual mode (MF), I just find it easier now, especially with close up work as it really helps you pin point the area you want to focus on. Most people do not feel comfortable shooting in manual when they first have their camera, as it can be quite scary, but hopefully after these 8 tutorials you will feel more confident. I will be doing a tutorial on the benefits and hindrance's of both settings later in the month.
So to re-cap, here is another example of getting the right focus and creating depth of field...
In the left image I have focused my square on the front yellow flower and in the right image I have focused my square just a tad higher on the back brick wall. Are we feeling more confident?
Now on to Bokeh, in my opinion bokeh is quite easy to create once you know how. Bokeh is the way your camera renders out of focus points of light, making light the main source of creating bokeh. Now over the years I have found that the greatest source of creating bokeh is by shooting something in front of a tree. Now that might seem strange, but dappled light is a great way of getting a great bokeh outcome, because when you are focusing on your product/person/item, all of that dappled light because out of focus, creating bokeh. Other great ways are shooting things in front of fairy lights, christmas lights, lights from background bars and street lights if you are out of an evening, car lights etc. Although again, focus is a strict rule of creating bokeh, and you must follow the points above to create great bokeh.
Here I have shot a flower in front of a tree...
Because my focus, and my square was focused on the flower and not the tree in the background, the out of focus light has become rendered and in turn created a great source of bokeh. Now don't just stand in front of a tree and take a picture haha, you have to make sure that you hold your object in front of the leaves, so you can get the source of light you need to create your bokeh. Another great way of creating bokeh, is shooting something in front of a window that has been rained on, you can see an example
here or even a frosted window, which you can see an example of
here. It really is quite simple, keep your camera trained on your main point of focus and the bokeh will create itself, as if by magic. What I will say again is, close up shots work much better for creating bokeh, than longer distance shots, for example...
These two images were both shot in the completely same position, except the on the right is a more close up shot compared to the one on the left, creating much more detailed bokeh and again a better photograph. The picture on the right is a great example of showing you the difference between DOF and Bokeh, the bottom of the right picture represents depth of field and the top of the right picture represents bokeh.
Has this helped you? Please let me know if you have any further questions or you haven't understood anything, I am more than happy to go through things with you.
|Gem Gem xoxo|
