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westie4us
Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:40:44 EDT
 |  Help with settings
Please critique for me.
I took this shot of a flower which I like but unhappy that I didn't get all of it in sharp focus. Can some of you point out what I should be setting my camera and lens on to achieve this? I wanted to get the background blur but have most all the flower still in focus.I'm using a 18 200mm lens on a d80.Thanks
Aperture priority
1/20sec F 5.6 ISO 200
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Mark
Sun, 28 Oct 2007 7:12:26 EDT
 | Re: Help with settings
Depth of Field (DOF) can be a double-edged sword. Set it too narrow (with a large aperture) and you'll have only a small portion of the scene in focus (sometimes that's desirable), but if the DOF is too wide then everything will be in focus and you'll lose isolation of the subject.
In your example, the background is very close to the subject, so you'll have difficulty keeping all of the flower in sharp focus while at the same time throwing the background out of focus.
The lens you're using has a very wide zoom range, so you can experiment with shooting at different distances and fields of view (zoom settings).
Just follow these basic rules about limiting DOF:
1. Wider apertures (smaller f-stop values such as f2.8 or the limit of your lens) will produce narrower DOF;
2. A smaller field of view (larger focal lengths such as 200mm) will narrow the DOF;
3. Closer distance to subject narrows the DOF.
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westie4us
Sat, 03 Nov 2007 0:01:51 EDT
| Re: Help with settings
1. Wider apertures (smaller f-stop values such as f2.8 or the limit of your lens) will produce narrower DOF;
2. A smaller field of view (larger focal lengths such as 200mm) will narrow the DOF;
3. Closer distance to subject narrows the DOF.
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Thank you Mark for the reply. It makes sence too and I'll keep the 3 rules in mind the next time.Your right I do have a good range with focal lengths with that particular lens. Now.. just have to learn to use it to it's potential. I've been learning alot since joining here. Just getting a new camera I find myself taking more photos and wanting to learn how to get better at it. I appreciate the commits. Thank you!
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