Depth of Field Scale Part II:

the points around 11ft will be sharp and everything else will start to blur. There is a very limited margin for error. You have reached the maximum aperture for this lens. Will it be enough? Is it too much? That depends on the size of the subject. Your range is now less than 12 inches. Divide12 by three and you get four. So you have 4 inches in front and 8 inches behind the critical point.

For our original subject and theme, a person standing in a field, this range is perfect for the effect that we are trying to achieve. But what if there were two people, say a couple. How would you have to place the couple in order to get the same effect but have both people equally sharp? How could you place more emphasis on one person and less on the other? You've seen those dreamy wedding photos of the bride and groom, where the bride's face is in focus and the groom standing right beside her is out of focus. Selective focusing and depth of field is how they do it.

Once you have decided on the aperture you want to use for a certain effect, you have to then compensate for the change by setting the appropriate speed on the camera. If you metered the scene and found that f8 at 1/60sec was the proper exposure, refigure the ratio for the new aperture setting.

F8 at 1/60sec = f5.6 at 1/125 sec = f4 at 1/250= f2.8 at 1/500sec= f2 at 1/1000

Try it for yourself. Go out and shoot a roll of film with only one subject. Work with the depth of field and experiment with different effects.

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