Depth of Field – A General Guide for Beginners

Depth of Field – A General Guide for Beginners: Depth of field is one of the most powerful tools we photographers have in our arsenal. It can be used to create great depth in a landscape or highlight the eyes of a model. In this short guide we will take a look what depth of field is and some of it’s uses.

Before we go anywhere, we should have a brief description of what DoF actually is.

Put into it’s simplest terms, it is the amount of the scene that is in acceptable focus, both in front of and behind the actually point of focus. It is controlled by the aperture of the lens, the focal length of the lens and by the distance from the camera to the subject. A large aperture of say f1.8 will give us a shallow depth of field or, in other words, very little in focus in front or an behind the subject. Conversely a small aperture, for example f11 will greatly increase the DoF for the same subject.