In this video, we dive deep into the often overlooked and misunderstood topic of depth-of-field. Whether you’re obsessed with bokeh or always set your camera to f5.6 or f8, understanding and using depth-of-field to your advantage is crucial for improving your portrait photography skills. Join us as we explore practical demonstrations, comparisons, and real-world examples to help you make informed decisions and take your portraits to the next level.
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Partial Transcript
Welcome back everyone! In today’s video, we’re going to do a deep dive on a topic that is often overlooked and misunderstood: depth-of-field. While many new photographers are obsessed with bokeh and shooting prime lenses wide open, there’s so much more to depth-of-field than just achieving those beautiful blurry backgrounds. On the other hand, some photographers might set their camera at f5.6 or f8 and leave it there all the time, resulting in too much depth-of-field for certain shots. Understanding and using depth-of-field to your advantage is crucial for improving your overall photography skills. By the end of this video, you’ll have the skills to make better decisions and take your portraits to the next level. So let’s get started!
In this video, We’re going to explore depth-of-field in detail, covering practical demonstrations, comparisons, and real-world examples to help you make informed decisions moving forward. First, we’ll break down what depth-of-field is and why it matters. Then, we’ll examine bokeh. After that, we’ll see how changing the f-stop can impact sharpness throughout the image in this comparison with our model Chris. Then we’ll see how shooting wide open or stopped down on set can be used to your artistic advantage. Finally, I’ll give you some practical tips for using depth-of-field strategically on your next shoot. Understanding depth-of-field is essential for taking your photography to the next level. It allows you to control what is in focus and what isn’t, helping you to create more compelling and professional-looking images.
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Let’s start with a quick explanation of what depth-of-field is. Depth-of-field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and the furthest objects in your shot that are considered to be in focus. Several factors affect depth-of-field:
The Aperture: A wider aperture (a smaller f-number) results in a shallower depth-of-field, while a larger f-number will give you more depth-of-field.
Focal Length: The longer the focal length, the shallower the depth-of-field.
Focus Distance: The closer the subject to the lens, the shallower the depth-of-field. Increasing the distance between the lens and the subject increases the depth-of-field.
An important aspect to note is that depth-of-field is typically deeper behind the focal plane than in front of it. For large apertures at typical portrait distances, the near-to-far DOF ratio is close to 1:1, meaning the distribution is nearly equal.
An example of how this works in the real world is when I am shooting a group photo with four rows of people, I have always used a wide-angle lens, focused on the second row, and then used a smaller f-number.
Another way to plan a shot is that some lenses have focus scales, like my Canon EF 35mm f1.4. If you wanted to shoot a group photo, the scale shows you that at f11, everything between infinity and about 6 feet can be in focus. These little tick marks indicate the depth-of-field for f8, and if you manually focus here, everything between 10 feet and infinity will be in focus.
Bokeh refers to the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus areas in your photos. It is often characterized by how pleasing the background blur appears, especially the shapes and softness of out-of-focus points of light. To be even more clear, when you hear portrait photographers talking about bokeh, they’re referring to shooting portraits at f1.2-f2 with about a 50-135mm lens to blur the background and isolate the subject.
To illustrate this, I had my trusty model Sia set up with some Christmas lights in the background. We started by shooting wide open at f1.2 with my Canon RF 85mm 1.2 lens.
Notice the large, circular bokeh balls in the background. This is because the aperture was wide open, creating a very shallow depth-of-field.
As we stopped down the aperture, you can see the bokeh balls getting smaller, and by f11, you can almost see the individual bulbs clearly. Also, note the shape of the bokeh changes with the number of aperture blades. Higher-end lenses with more blades create rounder bokeh balls, but cheaper or older lenses may give you hexagon or octagon bokeh.
By understanding how different apertures affect your bokeh and depth-of-field, you can make more informed decisions based on the look you want to achieve.
Next, let’s look at some portraits I shot with Chris using the same Canon RF 85mm 1.2 lens. We’ll compare different f-stops from f2 to f16.
At f2, only their eyes are really in focus. By f5.6, you’ll notice that the nose ring becomes sharp. The lens is sharpest overall from f5.6 to f8. At f11, you can see Chris’s earring becoming sharper. By f16, everything from the nose to the ear is in focus, but the overall sharpness starts to decline slightly. You might choose f11-f16 if you’re photographing jewelry
Understanding the sharpness and depth-of-field at different apertures is crucial for achieving the best results in your portraits.
When you’re shooting close-up portraits in the studio, you might be tempted to use a 50mm or 70mm lens to get more depth of field, but as you can see from this comparison with Christian, an 85mm lens will likely make your subjects look their best. You can also see how an 85mm is probably a better choice for full-body shots too if you have enough distance in your studio to use one.
For a deeper dive on this, I will link to a video where you can watch me compare different focal lengths in the studio and how much space you need to use each one of them.
Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
02:28 – Defining Depth of Field
04:53 – Bokeh
06:38 – Depth of Field F-Stop Comparison
07:59 – Choosing the Right Lens
08:42 – Retouching
09:46 – Background Blur with Sophia
12:15 – Real World Example with Kasan
12:48 – Conclusion
