Rachel Marie Photography is with us again for a new photography tip! Let me know how things are working for you!
Understanding depth of field is important in creating artistic images. When a photograph has great depth of field, it means that everything in the image is in focus, from the background to the foreground. Shallow depth of field is when only part of a photograph is in focus. This could mean anything from the background of your image being slightly softer, to only a tiny sliver of the image being in focus.
Aperture is the setting on your camera you will want to adjust in order to change your depth of field to exactly what you want. Aperture is measured in f/stops. Most SLR cameras have apertures ranging from f/1.8 to f/22. F/22 is going to give you the greater depth of field (all of the image is in focus), while f/3.5 will give you a very shallow depth of field (less of the image is in focus). So if you want to take a portrait where only the person’s face is in focus, then you will want to change your f/stop to a wider aperture like f/1.8. And vice versa for greater depth of field.
The image of the boy demonstrates very shallow depth of field. I had my camera set at f/1.8.   The image of the couple in front of the temple has a great depth of field. I had my camera set at f/16.

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