Hey y’all! We are back with another installment of Photography Tip Tuesday. Today Deeana from Deeana Kourtney Photography is going to give us a little lesson on how to achieve a good depth of field AKA creating that soft, blurry background that style bloggers just love. With that, I will let Deeana take it away!!
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Hi guys – today we’re going to talk about controlling your aperture and getting a shallow depth of field. I’m sure you all have seen that tack sharp image of a subject and the background has a really pretty blur (that blur is called bokeh if you want to get techy) and you were wondering to yourself “How can I do that?” Well, I’m here to help – it’s actually pretty simple!
A basic definition of of depth of field is: the zone of acceptable sharpness within a photo that will appear in focus. In every picture there is a certain area of your imagine in front of, and behind the subject that will appear in focus. Your depth of field is controlled by changing your aperture, which is that f – number that we touched based on in the our post last week you can find that here. The lower the f – number the more shallow your depth of field is (creates a greater blur in the background) and the higher the f – number the more sharp the entire image will be (less blur in the background). Another thing that will effect how much blur you can create in the back ground is the distance the subject is from the camera. The closer the subject is to the camera the shallower the depth of field becomes, meaning you’ll be able to create more of a blur in the background. Moving further away from the subject will deepen your depth of field, which means your subject will stand out less and the blur will not be as great, but you will have an entire image that will be sharp. Below is an example of you how the depth of field changes depending on where the subject is in relation to the camera. In the example below the settings are exactly the same with the same f – number.
Now, there is one downfall when changing your f – number (your aperture) to a really low number – the lower that number is, the more room for error when focusing. You must make sure your hand is steady and you are always focusing on your subjects eyes, always be sure your subjects eyes are in focus! The picture on the left if you look closely her face is not entirely in focus, her eyes are not sharp, but the picture on the right if you look closely her eyes are perfectly in focus.
Ok, so now lets recap what we know. A shallow depth of field (Dof) creates a picture that has a subject that stands out in focus with a blurry background. Changing your aperture is how you create a shallow depth of field – and your aperture is that little f – number on the back of your camera – the lower the f – number the more shallow your depth of field is! Lastly, every time you change that f – number don’t forget about the exposure triangle, that we learned about last week and if you change your f – number to a lower number you will need to make your shutter speed a higher number. If you missed last weeks lesson on the exposure triangle read it here. (FYI- for the pictures above the f-stop is 1.8)
Go pick up that camera, find a model (a dog, a cat, a husband, a diet coke, anything will work!) and start playing with those numbers and see how many different looks you can get by simply changing your aperture and changing your distance between you and your subject. Be sure to leave us any questions below!
xo,
Deeana & Bess
Brandi Soileau says
I have a question! I have a Nikon D3400 and I was taught to keep it in Aperture mode. And what I think it does is automatically adjust shutter speed and ISO when I change my F stop. Is there a certain “triangle” ( ___ F stop, _____ ISO, and ____ shutter speed) that works well in certain lighting, when using my fixed 50mm lense? For example, if I’m shooting right before sunset, is there a great combo of a good F stop (1.8?) , ISO (800?) , and SS (no idea lol-don’t know much about shutter speed) to choose?
Deeana says
Hi Brandi!
I hate to give this answer, but it really just depends. There’s nothing wrong with aperture priority mode, and you are correct it allows you to change the F stop and the camera chooses what shutter speed and iso it thinks is best with that aperture (f stop). I personally when I’m outside about an hour before sunset always keep my ISO at about 100 (the higher that ISO number the more you risk noise aka fuzziness) with an ISO at 100 and your f stop at 1.8 it really depends on the exact lighting situation what the shutter will be at. Could be 600 or 400 or 200! I encourage to try full manual move just for the fun of it and play with all of these numbers, you seem to have a general knowledge of the exporsure triangle and I bet you could figure it out!
Thanks girl!
Deeana
Brandi Soileau says
Ok, good to know! I’ve not yet heard about ISO that low, so thank you! I just keep adding info. like this that I come across to my notes section and read over it before I get out and snap my own pics (or hand my camera off to someone that’s with me, haha) So so much to learn with this blogging stuff! I had no clue what I was getting into, but it’s still fun, and even more fun when you get difficult things down to a system! Thanks again, to you both, for sharing! 🙂
Katy Harrell says
I love how you and Deeanna are doing this series. It is SO perfect and so helpful. You both are amazing!!!