I have been practising doing depth of field shots today but with not much success !! This is the best I could manage which isn't brilliant but I think is a bit blurred in the background ? I put the camera setting on AV & changed the F stop to a lower number F2..0 making the aperture more open but that wasn't much different so then I put the camera on Macro & took this!! I will have to ask again tomorrow at class but there are quite a few of us & I need to wait my turn to ask ! I'm sure this isn't the right way to do it but have to keep trying ,the only way to learn !
Hi Pat, I think you need to get closer to the subject to make the DOF blurry.
At the moment the camera is focussing on the rose , but because you are so far away from it the background is almost in focus too. Especially if you had a macro setting on your camera.
Just get closer to the rose and do the f2.0 thing again and all will be OK.
@phil_howcroft Thanks Phil I was hoping some one would give me a little advice !! I have just found my literature from class last week so have been reading up ...I will try again tomorrow !!!
I tend to find my P&S doesn't do DoF very well unless I am particularly close to the subject and I'm on the macro setting - (that said for portraits especially!) Phil's advice sound - get closer should get a result
We had that discussion yesterday - P&S people were struggling to get DOF. I find I get best DOF with my zoom lens (our teacher says it's very marked with my camera - something to do with the sensor size??) so as well as Phil's suggestion you could try using your zoom but then getting quite close to the subject and see what happens. Maybe that mimics macro so just using macro might be better. I don't know if it will work but that's what I do if I want a really blurred background - get the zoom out. You can see a blurred background in your nice rose pic!
@judithg Thanks Judith for your suggestion I think you could be right about P&S even though this one has all the different settings eg Manual, RAW etc I don't think it has quite the same range as a SLR ...a poor workman blames his tools !!! I will do as you suggest tomorrow !!
When I use my T1i, I get as close as I can with the lens that I have and somehow I get a pretty good DOF. The lens allows me to get about 6-8 inches away from something. My Canon Point and Shoot macro lets me get much closer and I have not really tried to get the DOF blur with it. I think I will try Phil's suggestion to see how mine turns out.
I don't have any advice for you Pat, but I think I'm going to enjoy your trial shots if this is anything to go by. I love the pink rose with the bricks in the background.
At the moment the camera is focussing on the rose , but because you are so far away from it the background is almost in focus too. Especially if you had a macro setting on your camera.
Just get closer to the rose and do the f2.0 thing again and all will be OK.
I hope that helps