Have you ever had some images look sharp with your depth of field and others shallow, this could help you out!

So here we have two different images, look at the depth of field in both images.

It has been a while since we were active on here, so much going on with life in the past year as I'm sure most of you are feeling the same way. So I decided to share a few loon images with you from one of my outings with Kevin.

If you have the chance to photograph the same subject for a few days or a week its always important to review your images and look at your settings. Here we have two pictures taken with almost the exact same settings. Both images were taken at 1/640 shutter speed, F8, One was at ISO 500 and the other at 800. The focal distance was 450mm exactly for both images. But if you look at the depth of field in the image you will notice one is sharp from tip to tail and the other is sharp on the head and soft on the body. Before you read on ask yourself why is this so different if I used the exact same settings??

The reason is the distance between your subject and the camera. Now before you stress about this, it's all what you desire in your image as both images to me are acceptable. When you go out with Kevin he never forces the boat on the loons for your photograph. Because he's out with them all the time they will pop up or swim right past the boat.

Here is an example

Camera and settings APC 1.5x crop F8 at 20 feet from subject the total depth of field is 2" so where ever you have your focus point one inch before and 1 inch after will be in focus.

If we use the same settings but our subject is 40 feet away our depth of field will be 8.5" where the focus point is it will be 4.2" before and 4.3" behind the subject.

On a full frame 20 feet is 3.2" and 40 feet is 13.4" as a side note.

So just when you think you are getting the hang of photography remember that focal distance to a subject can make all the difference. This can work for many genres, macro, portrait, wildlife and more. Because many of us can't get out and shoot lately, possibly its time to set up some measured subjects and try out different lenses to see how focal distance effect our depth of field.

For me to get the same depth of field at 20 feet for my subject as I did at 40 feet I would of needed to be zoomed to 400mm F18 to get 8.5" depth of field. So both focal distance and focal length will change our depth of field along with our F stop.

Happy shooting!!

Chris