Assignment: Photo Walk Friday!

Photowalking is a communal activity of camera enthusiasts who gather in a group to walk around with a camera for the main purpose of taking pictures of things that interests each photographer.

Your Assignment: Depth of Field

Many of you may be able to do this simply with PORTRAIT mode on your Iphone but you should understand why this mode helps make your images look so impressive.  

Managing depth of field is one of the most important tools at your disposal, because having tack sharp images is one of the most important factors to getting that great shot. Knowing how to make the parts of your image you want sharp and the parts you want to be out of focus, is a great artistic tool to create great images.

The image on the left was captured at 250th of a second at f/5.0 which resulted in a very shallow depth of field.  Because of this the background is out of focus allowing the subject to stand out. The image on the right was captured at 1/5th of a second at f/32 which created a deep depth of field and a sharper background.

On an SLR camera the lower your f-number, the smaller your depth of field. Likewise, the higher your f-number, the larger your depth of field. For example, using a setting of f/2.8 will produce a very shallow depth of field while f/11 will produce a deeper DoF.

You must POST at least ONE photo showing obvious DEPTH OF FIELD to your blog upon return from our photo walk. They will be graded Monday morning, so if you do not have time to post in class, you can do so over the weekend for homework.