Let’s start a new week with a photography post. This blog is not just about Photoshop and Lightroom, but photography as well.

I’ve been into photography for many years, my passion for photography started when I was in high school and it’s been a real passion for me since then.

So, what is depth of field, you may be asking? Depth of field is described as the are on the image that is in focus. As an example, if you take a photo of your friend in front of a building, depending in the aperture you use (more on that later), your depth of field may cover just your friend, or your friend and a building. If you take a photo of a landscape, usually the entire landscape would be in focus (a common aperture setting in landscapes would be 16 and more).

Here’s an example of a shallow depth of field:

And here’s an example of a depth of field that keeps everything in focus:

As you can see on the example of the landscape image, almost everything is in focus.

If you think about it, you can use depth of field to bring the focus into the image. Let’s say you’re taking a photo of a person – a portrait.

Would you like everything in focus, or would you like to have your subject in focus and the background blurred?

Usually you’d want the background to be blurred to keep attention on the model. That’s when you’d use a shallow depth of field. Using a shallow depth of field, you can seperate your subject from the background. When your subject is the only thing in focus, the viewer’s eyes will automatically focus on the subject and keep attention on it.

So, how do we manipulate the depth of field? We’ll talk about that tomorrow…

See you tomorrow. Have a lovely day.