PICTURES FROM MY WINDOW. DEPTH OF FIELD

NIKON D80 50 mm, 1/1000, F:2,8, 400 ASA

NIKON D80 50 mm, 1/15, F:22 ,400 ASA

This is a practical exercise on depth of field that I ask my students to do: to photograph the same subject with very little and with great depth of field, using the same lens, at the same distance and changing only the aperture. I took the photo of the plant in my terrace without leaving home. For that reason I started the series Pictures from my window, among other ones: I can prepare some examples for my classes without leaving home. By the way, thanks to readers of the blog I already know that the plant is from the sucus (Latin) family, which stores water and does not need to be almost watered. And I used to do it, at least, once a week.

TECHNICAL EXPLANATIONS.

DEPTH OF FIELD is the distance between the farthest and closest elements in the picture in relationship with the point we focus. Depth of field depends of three factors that can be controlled by a photographer who works in manual mode:
1) Lenses focal length. The longest the focal length the shorter will be the depth of field and vice-versa.
2) The distance. The distance between the camera and what we want to photograph. The longest the distance the longer will be the depth of field and vice-versa.
3) F-number. The smallest the f-number (less light entering through the lens) the longer will be the depth of field.
I used a large aperture f: 2.8 for the picture with little depth of field and a very small one f: 22 for the image with great depth of field.