Depth of Field
Most of the time our camera's auto exposure features are good enough so we can count on perfectly exposed pictures all the time. Sometimes, however, you can get amazing effects from your film camera by using manual settings for your exposure. Learn when to override the camera's default settings to get exceptional pictures. The term, "depth of field" refers to changing exposure to either increase or reduce the degree of sharpness of the elements in your picture.
Instructions
Add Dimensions to Your Pictures by Using Manual Exposure Settings
1. Decide whether or not you want your picture to have even sharpness throughout, or if you want to have a sharp image in the center of the picture, and a blurry background. The first steps will describe taking a picture where you want the entire frame to be sharp. The second will describe take a picture that has a sharp foreground and a blurred background.
2. When you want a sharp picture of everything in your frame, you want to make your camera aperture as narrow as possible in order to take advantage of the physics of light that narrows the light coming into the camera. For example, if you are taking a normal picture where the average exposure settings would be f11 with a shutter speed of 125, you would change the aperture settings to f16, and stop the shutter speed down to 60. This will allow less light to come through the camera's lense, and the slower shutter speed will make up for the lost light shooting at f16 than f11.
3. If your camera has a preview function or a button you can push to see how the picture will look, use that function now to see if you are getting a sharp picture from the foreground to the background. If it is a little fuzzy in either of these picture elements, choose an aperture setting of f22, and a shutter speed of 30. If this gives you the degree of sharpness you want, take the picture. The slower the shutter speed, the more likely you will experience camera shake, so hold the camera tightly or use a tripod to take your picture.
4. If you want to highlight something in the foreground, the opposite steps are done. The aperture settings are wider, and the shutter settings are faster. For example, if you want to capture a close up of a flower and blur the background, open the aperture to f8 and change the shutter speed to 250. This will highlight your foreground, and give you a soft, fuzzy background.
Tags: shutter speed, your picture, aperture settings, degree sharpness, Exposure Settings, picture where, sharp picture
