Practising Depth of Field

Aperture Priority Mode

You may be wondering why I am blogging about the various functions of my camera; well, I am currently doing an online course with Image Academy. Its a great course which I can take as long as want to complete, it simply breaks down all aspects of photography and teaches me the important functions of the camera; each module requires the submission of 1 image which follows the brief. For this assignment I am required to shoot in Aperture Priority and focus on Depth of Field.

First; Select *Aperture Priority* on your camera's dial - its usually just simply an *A*.

I have learned that in order to understand 'Depth of Field' we must firstly understand 'Aperture'. Your cameras aperture is basically the size of the shutter, or the size of the hole. The aperture is shown on the camera in f/numbers - e.g. f/22 - but remember, the higher the f/number the smaller the hole, and the lower the f/number, f/4.6, the larger the hole.

When thinking about 'depth of field', we know that depth of field means how much of the image if in focus, so, for example, your subject matter is in full focus and everything around it and in the foreground is out of focus; this is shallow depth of field. A long depth of field would be when the entire image is in full focus.

So, here's some of my shots taken in *Aperture Priority*

I have created depth of field by finding a subject to be the main focus and then making the surroundig area out of focus.