Aperture and Depth of Field, Part 15

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Aperture and Depth of Field, Part 15

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Aperture and Depth of Field

 

A little review from Part One.  Aperture refers to the physical opening where light enters the lens.  Aperture settings are measured by f-stops: f1.0 up to f32 and even greater.  Generally speaking, a super-wide aperture is f1.0; a super-narrow aperture is f32.  Most of us don’t use either of these extremes in bird photography.  If you look into the lens while it is attached to your camera, you can see the circular opening formed by a metal apparatus made from thin fins.  As you change the aperture on your camera you can see the circle opening get smaller and larger as it is changed.  The widest aperture (maximum aperture) for your lens is the f-stop that corresponds to the largest circle your lens can make.

Maximum aperture is the largest opening of which you lens is capable.  The larger the maximum aperture, the faster the lens is said to be.  A bird lens (400mm or longer) with a max. aperture of f2.8 is considered fast. A bird lens with a max. aperture of f5.6 – f6.3 is considered pretty slow.

If you’ve studied photography basics, you probably know that the wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field (DOF).  DOF is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image (Wikipedia).  The DOF is not only affected by the aperture setting but also by how close the lens is to the subject that is being focused on and also the focal length of the lens.

Say I have an f2.8, 400mm lens and I’m shooting wide open (f2.8).  If I am 30 feet from a bird, my DOF will be from 29 feet  11 inches to 30 feet 1 inch (taken from DOF table).  Anything in that distance range from the lens will be in reasonably sharp focus.  The DOF in this case is 2 inches.

Say I now have the same lens with the same settings but I move back to 50 feet from the bird (wouldn’t do that in real life probably!).  Now my DOF is from 49 feet 9 inches to 50 feet.  The DOF has grown to 3 inches just because I’m farther away from the bird.

Say I change my lens to a 400mm f5.6 lens and I set its aperture wide open at f5.6.  If I’m 30 feet from the bird, the DOF is 29’ 10” to 30’ 2”.  DOF is now 4 inches with the f5.6 aperture compared to 2 inches with the f2.8 aperture.

Say I have the same 400mm f5.6 lens wide open and I move back to 50 feet from the bird.  DOF is now 49’ 6” to 51’.  That’s a DOF of 7 full inches compared to the f2.8 aperture at 50 feet.  It was only 3 inches when I used f2.8.

You can see how shallow DOF is when you use an f2.8 lens.  If you are shooting a large bird like an eagle from 30 feet away, there will surely be parts of the bird that are not in acceptable focus because an eagle’s beak to the back of the head is longer than 2 inches.  So maybe the eye would be in focus but the tip of the beak may not be.  So it may not be the best choice of aperture to use in this situation unless you’re looking for a very special type of shot.  Stopping down to f4 would give you an extra inch of DOF.  (As a note, good bird photos do not require that the entire bird be in focus!  But I would prefer at least the bill and the eye(s) to be in focus.  It depends on the shot and what the photographer wants to communicate to viewers of the photo).

Note that a lot depends on how the bird is posed.  If the bird is posed at a profile angle to you, then that f4 setting might work out fine.  But if the bird is facing you, and the eagle has a bill to tail length of 24 inches say, only 3 inches of that length will be in focus—which 3 inches depends on what part of the bird you focus on.

“Luckily,” most beginner and intermediate bird photographers don’t have to worry about shallow DOF at f2.8 because many can’t afford a 400mm f2.8 lens!  But I wanted to use it to demonstrate the DOF comparisons above.  Most hobbyists can’t justify buying an f4 bird lens.  We usually have to settle for an f5.6 to f6.3 lens, especially as we are starting out in the hobby.  I listed some lens prices back in Part One.  There’s a pretty big jump in prices once you get faster than f5.6 at 400mm and greater!

<<Previous Article                                                                                     Next Article >>

Bird Photography Equipment (1)

DSLR Features for Bird Photography (2)

Memory Cards for Cameras (3)

Lenses for Bird Photography (4)

Bird Photography Accessories (5)

Tripod or Monopod? (6)

More Accessories for Bird Photography (7)

Software Introduction for Bird Photography (8)

Introduction to Capturing Bird Images (9)

JPG or RAW? (10)

Shooting Bird Photos (11)

Camera Exposure Modes (12)

Other Camera Settings and Features (13)

Exif Data (14)

Best Time to Photograph Birds (16)

Composition in Bird Photography (17)

Getting Close in Bird Photography (18)

Backgrounds in Bird Photography (19)

Using External Flash when Photographing Birds (20)

Photographing Birds in Flight (21)

Lightroom 3: Hub of my Workflow (22)

Processing Images in Lightroom 3 (23)

Processing Images in Lightroom 3 (24)

From Lightroom to Plugins (25)

Using Lightroom to Upload Images (26)

Posted in

Aperture and Depth of Field

 

A little review from Part One.  Aperture refers to the physical opening where light enters the lens.  Aperture settings are measured by f-stops: f1.0 up to f32 and even greater.  Generally speaking, a super-wide aperture is f1.0; a super-narrow aperture is f32.  Most of us don’t use either of these extremes in bird photography.  If you look into the lens while it is attached to your camera, you can see the circular opening formed by a metal apparatus made from thin fins.  As you change the aperture on your camera you can see the circle opening get smaller and larger as it is changed.  The widest aperture (maximum aperture) for your lens is the f-stop that corresponds to the largest circle your lens can make.

Maximum aperture is the largest opening of which you lens is capable.  The larger the maximum aperture, the faster the lens is said to be.  A bird lens (400mm or longer) with a max. aperture of f2.8 is considered fast. A bird lens with a max. aperture of f5.6 – f6.3 is considered pretty slow.

If you’ve studied photography basics, you probably know that the wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field (DOF).  DOF is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image (Wikipedia).  The DOF is not only affected by the aperture setting but also by how close the lens is to the subject that is being focused on and also the focal length of the lens.

Say I have an f2.8, 400mm lens and I’m shooting wide open (f2.8).  If I am 30 feet from a bird, my DOF will be from 29 feet  11 inches to 30 feet 1 inch (taken from DOF table).  Anything in that distance range from the lens will be in reasonably sharp focus.  The DOF in this case is 2 inches.

Say I now have the same lens with the same settings but I move back to 50 feet from the bird (wouldn’t do that in real life probably!).  Now my DOF is from 49 feet 9 inches to 50 feet.  The DOF has grown to 3 inches just because I’m farther away from the bird.

Say I change my lens to a 400mm f5.6 lens and I set its aperture wide open at f5.6.  If I’m 30 feet from the bird, the DOF is 29’ 10” to 30’ 2”.  DOF is now 4 inches with the f5.6 aperture compared to 2 inches with the f2.8 aperture.

Say I have the same 400mm f5.6 lens wide open and I move back to 50 feet from the bird.  DOF is now 49’ 6” to 51’.  That’s a DOF of 7 full inches compared to the f2.8 aperture at 50 feet.  It was only 3 inches when I used f2.8.

You can see how shallow DOF is when you use an f2.8 lens.  If you are shooting a large bird like an eagle from 30 feet away, there will surely be parts of the bird that are not in acceptable focus because an eagle’s beak to the back of the head is longer than 2 inches.  So maybe the eye would be in focus but the tip of the beak may not be.  So it may not be the best choice of aperture to use in this situation unless you’re looking for a very special type of shot.  Stopping down to f4 would give you an extra inch of DOF.  (As a note, good bird photos do not require that the entire bird be in focus!  But I would prefer at least the bill and the eye(s) to be in focus.  It depends on the shot and what the photographer wants to communicate to viewers of the photo).

Note that a lot depends on how the bird is posed.  If the bird is posed at a profile angle to you, then that f4 setting might work out fine.  But if the bird is facing you, and the eagle has a bill to tail length of 24 inches say, only 3 inches of that length will be in focus—which 3 inches depends on what part of the bird you focus on.

“Luckily,” most beginner and intermediate bird photographers don’t have to worry about shallow DOF at f2.8 because many can’t afford a 400mm f2.8 lens!  But I wanted to use it to demonstrate the DOF comparisons above.  Most hobbyists can’t justify buying an f4 bird lens.  We usually have to settle for an f5.6 to f6.3 lens, especially as we are starting out in the hobby.  I listed some lens prices back in Part One.  There’s a pretty big jump in prices once you get faster than f5.6 at 400mm and greater!

<<Previous Article                                                                                     Next Article >>

Bird Photography Equipment (1)

DSLR Features for Bird Photography (2)

Memory Cards for Cameras (3)

Lenses for Bird Photography (4)

Bird Photography Accessories (5)

Tripod or Monopod? (6)

More Accessories for Bird Photography (7)

Software Introduction for Bird Photography (8)

Introduction to Capturing Bird Images (9)

JPG or RAW? (10)

Shooting Bird Photos (11)

Camera Exposure Modes (12)

Other Camera Settings and Features (13)

Exif Data (14)

Best Time to Photograph Birds (16)

Composition in Bird Photography (17)

Getting Close in Bird Photography (18)

Backgrounds in Bird Photography (19)

Using External Flash when Photographing Birds (20)

Photographing Birds in Flight (21)

Lightroom 3: Hub of my Workflow (22)

Processing Images in Lightroom 3 (23)

Processing Images in Lightroom 3 (24)

From Lightroom to Plugins (25)

Using Lightroom to Upload Images (26)

2 thoughts on “Aperture and Depth of Field, Part 15”

  1. Hi Dennis,

    I must compliment you on your writing and thinking process. While DOF has been second nature to me since my first Petri SLR in the early 70’s, I definitely learned a lot from this article and will reread it a few more times (as I will the entire series).

    I hope that my girlfriend will read these articles someday with a new and clear mind. I am afraid that my “simple” inverse square description of F-stop may have obscured the idea.

    I thought that you should be teaching this … but then I realized it is precisely what you are doing with these articles. I appreciate your extraordinary “Pay It Forward” sharing for birding, for my part I buy/give away binoculars and field guides to potential birders and consider my spotting scope a shared asset.

    This is yet another aspect I love about birding … fabulous, generous people.

    Thanks & good birding!

    -Doug.

  2. Doug, thanks so much for your nice comment! It’s difficult to know how my writing comes across to others and you have given me some assurance that I may be doing ok. If you do happen to come across something that makes no sense or is just plain wrong, please shoot me an email about it so I can get it fixed.

    You sound like an respectful, generous, and intelligent birder/photographer. Thanks for being part of my bird photography experience!

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