depth of field (dof) goes hand in hand with focus, which was our first lesson. you will see many sellers on etsy who use depth of field to their advantage. i will show a few as example in a minute. first off let me explain what depth of field is and how it works.
dof is the blurry areas around (front and back) the main focal point of the photograph. sometimes these areas are just a little bit blurry, barely noticeable, and sometimes they are extremely out of focus. DoF is your aperture value (f/2, f/2.8, f/3.5, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22). the aperture controlls the lens opening on your camera. the smaller the number the larger the opening (and the smaller the depth of field) the larger the number the smaller the opening (and the larger the depth of field). when photographing with a large DoF (f/5.6 and smaller) then you will need a faster shutter speed to compensate. if you aren't shooting in manual mode then you won't need to worry about it.
controlling DoF is pretty simple. if you want a small DoF (alot of blurry spots and very small focal plane) then you need to be much closer to your subject. if you want a large Dof (most or all of the photo in focus) then you need to be farther away.
the following three pictures are examples of DoF. keep an eye on the shiny silver eyelet. it was the focal point for all three photos.
f/2.8
f/5.6
f/11
since i have a macro lens i can achieve much greater DoF than your standard point and shoot digital. normally i do not photograph jewelry with this much DoF i just used it as an example for this article. normally i have my camera set to f/5.6 with my shutter speed adjusted to match. (obviously i take photographs in manual mode, we will get into this in a later lesson).
well, i'm not sure where else to go with this lesson on DoF. I will leave you with links to a few etsy sellers who use DoF to their advantage.
Sterling Silver Forged Sticks with Hammered Half Domes byasymetry
Tying The Knot save the date byInvitaPaperStudio
and fabulous examples here:
The Colors byreyaveltman
7 comments:
thanks for the article. you have gotten me so excited about photographing my work. it has really been a struggle for me.
the "amore infinito" necklace, i literally had to shoot that picture 80 times, yes, i said 80 times! before I came up with that photo. that is the main reason i do not have a lot of jewelry in my shop.
here is another question for you.
my digi camera is a sony cybershot 3.2 megapixels with 3x optical. do you think that if i upgraded my camera to a more megapixel digi camera that i would get better results?
can not wait for your next article!
(that was me signed in as ranestorm and posting this comment before i realized that i was signed in with the wrong email - tee he he)
i guess before i can answer whether or not a new camera would improve results i would need a few answers.
1) are you photographing your work in the largest file size possible?
2) why did it take you 80 times to get a photo you like? were they blurry, too dark, or you didn't like the composition, etc?
3) do you have/use any type of photo correction program (photoshop, picasa, whatever came with your camera)?
answer these and we will go from there. i think maybe the next article should be on composition.
btw: i love the photo of that necklace
ok, maybe i confused you in my convo to you.
i am using my old camera. i want a new digi camera, something that is not in the dslr price range.
answers to your blog comment:
1) si, senorita.
2) all of the above. for the first 75, not kidding, i was either using a self made photo box. or outside or inside. they all turned out too blurry, washed out and composition.
3)i was using ms digital image pro. because computer was so old that i could not load anything else.
4)now i am using gimp that is what i used to edit the photos on my blogger banner. much better.
thank you i am very proud of that picture. it had just rained, early in the morning.
well, hm. do you shoot in manual mode or automatic? what settings do you have it set on? flash on or off? tripod?
ok, that's all for now. more of this episode of 20 questions after your reply. :)
shoot in manual mode
tripod
as for settings i change them.
hm, well unfortunately i think it might be time for a camera update. as far as point and shoot cameras go i have the kodak v1253 but the newer version the kodak v1273 has optical image stabilization (which helps keep the photos from being blurry) it runs $279 from kodak.com but i'm sure that you can find it cheaper than that. :)
and it takes HD video (if that matters)
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