Work diary - depth of field

Evaluation;

 During this shoot the focus was purely on how we could manipulate our cameras in different ways to have an outcome of shallow and deep depth of fields. This shoot was very technical and more about the way we did this rather than the content of the picture which I found to be helpful as it allowed room for experimentation and also meant that it was one less thing to focus on so we could get a handle on how to master these techniques. I think that this shoot actually was very successful as although we had worked on depth of field before it wasn't actually something that I understood fully. I think that my shoots for a shallow depth of field turned out better as I was more experimental with these as it was out of the two the one I found to be more interesting and have a better end result. 

This picture is my favorite from the shallow depth of field shoot due to the way that the tree is so in focus and you can see the texture so well, this makes the blurred background so much more bold, the contrasting tones in this picture also make me like it more, it makes both elements stick out, almost like a yin-yang effect.

This picture I also like this picture from the shallow depth of field shoot because it has the texture and the boldness of the subject but also has leads your eye in a curve to the background that is out of focus, the picture also seems to lead from dark colours and get lighter and lighter as it goes up which I think is adding an extra dimension to the picture.

Idea development;

This shoot has helped me to develop skills in using the depth of field to make a picture that much better, I definitely enjoyed doing the shallow depth of field shooting and would love to develop this on a level with maybe portraiture and also maybe incorporating the idea of animation with this maybe causing the background to go blurred whilst the person stays in focus.

Depth of field technique page

Depth of field is a term used to discuss the depth that a picture has, whether there is a lot of background in focus or not would be the simple way of describing it.  I will split this into two sections, how to shoot a shallow depth of field and how to shoot a deep depth of field.

Shallow;

Firstly to get a nice picture with a shallow depth of field we must place our subject in front of a background that will look nice when out of focus, however you must be a distance away from it or it will stay in focus. Before shooting our camera must be set up correctly so that we get the best results, we must change both the aperture and the zoom length. We want to set the aperture to as low a number as we can, so the depth of field is much shallower.  Then we need to go on and choose a zoom length that will make our subject in focus and our background out of focus, therefore we must set this at around the number 28/100/300, depending on the focal length you choose will mean how far away or close to your subject you will be standing, then we are ready to shoot, for my work I used a focal length of 300 because I wasn’t far away enough from my subject that I could get a nice balance between the background and them. You will then have a picture with a shallow depth of field; I found that portraits worked very well for this, as can be seen in my work elsewhere on the blog.

Deep;

Firstly for a deep depth of field photograph you need to choose what you want to shoot, and you must carefully think about the background because it will be very clear in these pictures, you want something where there is background that is far away so it looks deep also though. We will then need to change the settings on the camera again like with the shallow depth of field, however the aperture that we want for this type of photograph means that we want a higher number so the aperture is actually smaller. To add to this we want a wide angle to make the picture have more depth so a focal length of around 28 is the best to use as it gives you more to work with. You then just need to go out and shoot, with having a deep depth of field it is good to have layers in a picture so that it adds to the effect. If you follow all of this you will end up with a photograph with a deep depth of field.

Animation Technique Page

Animation is where there is a string of images put together to make it look like a moving image at the end. There are many different software paths that you can use to create this, however in my case when I made my animation I used Imovie which was downloaded on the Mac I was using prior to me doing this.

Firstly you must decide what you are going to animate, there isn't really a set rule for what you can and can’t animate, however you must think if it will make good viewing, the best type of thing to do would be an everyday activity that can be related to, and there must be some movement, there is no point doing an animation if it isn't going to move. Once you've decided what you are going to animate you need to section this out in a storyboard like way, you need to decide how many pictures you will need for this to work and to look good, this is to prepare you for shooting so you don’t waste time when shooting, and you also don’t come back in with holes in your animation.

Next you go out to shoot, this would look better if you had another person as your subject as the movement is easier to capture and it adds substance to what you are shooting, making it more interesting. This is where the story board idea comes in handy, you can then just go and choose your setting that fits what you want to shoot, and you follow the story board, depending on how long the animation is will vary the time in-between your shots being taken which should be around 1-3 seconds.

The hardest part of the process of animation is the editing to get the end result that you want for your animation. I am using Imovie, so for this I need to import all pictures into my software and then place them in the editing line, where we can put these pictures together, you must ensure that you put the pictures in order so the animation runs smoothly and makes sense. This is where you have to use your guessing skills, dependent on how long you want your animation to be, you have to chose how quickly you want the pictures to move, for my video I found that just under half a second ran smoothly, but mine was a big animation, whereas if it is shorter you may want the pictures further apart. With Imovie you can also add sounds to the animation, however if none of these sounds are what you are looking for you can import music into the software and add parts of this into your animation by placing it into the editing line, and cropping it to make sure it fits in with the timing you want.