sorry i have been follwoing up with photography lately. my understanding is that background will be blurry and my main object will be in focus if i set my aperture to f2.8 compared to f/22.

why then in macro shooting, ppl tend to use higher f number (let say f16 rather than as lowly as possible, f2.8?) i thought if i use f2.8, then my object of interest, a bug would be in focus and background blurred?

because when u do macro, ur lens usually very close to the subject. If you go wide open, the DOF is very shallow. so shallow till that ur flower for eg will be focused on some part oni, this happens when ur vf is filled with the flower. so people use high f no.

another reason maybe they want to cut ambient light.

macro lens is unforgiving when it comes to aperture.

f/8 - f/11 may not be sufficient sometimes.

f/2.8 would be too shallow.

go try shooting anything upclose using f2.8 and you will find the answer for your question

thanks all. does focal length affect dof? let say i use 35mm and 100mm lens to shoot an object (fstop etc evrything are constant)..does the DOF and exposure remain the same for both?

of course, the longer your focal length is, the less DOF you get. you can google for more precise information and sample pictures

The best way to find out is to test it for yourself. f/2.8 on a 90mm 1:1 macro will give you like 2mm of DOF.

calculator http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

It is because the closer you are to your subject, the shallower depth of field (which mean more things are out of focus). In order for your subject to be in focus within a very short working distance, you'll need much smaller aperture setting. One more thing u should watch out other than the depth of field is your shuttle speed. If you set your aperture setting to very small such as F22, you need to slow down the shuttle speed in order to gather enough light. In order to compensate this, you can either

1) use flash
2) ram up the ISO setting
3) have a tripod stand for long exposure time.

If you need more info, I find this video very useful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9wcm1BMc0U

Happy shooting !

This post has been edited by Loseeker: Mar 5 2014, 09:23 AM

you use wide open with a macro lens if you want to have some creative shots, or when you only want the eyes or the head / part thereof the subject in focus. the result could be very interesting!

furthermore, if the background doesn't jive with the subject i'm shooting, i will use F22 to have a black background. if the background is of pleasing colours and suits the subject, i'll try to capture some of the ambient lighting using slightly larger aperture.

i'm a mainly underwater photographer, so there's an extra medium to consider, that is water, and there'll be a lot of particles in it, so it ultimately depends on what kind of shots you want.

LOL. no, that's a shot with thin DOF and creamy background.

It has no relevance to "creativity".

it's a bit different when it comes to underwater photography..if you know what i'm talking about. the same underwater subject with a shallow DOF will look entirely different than the other with the whole subject in focus. i'm specifically referring to the subject, not the creamy background. i'm using olympus 60mm f2.8 macro lens with +10 dioptre magnifier.

especially frontal head shots of the subject, sometimes with only the eyes or head in focus the shot will come out differently. isn't that creativity we're talking about? LOL





see the huge difference between the same subject?

not too sure about macro land photography though.

This post has been edited by humms: Mar 10 2014, 09:45 AM

it's the same whether underwater or not.

like i said, thin DOF with blur background is no indication of creativity.

what i'm trying to relay is that you can use DOF to create creative shots.. or you may have different definition of creative.

my definition of creative in photography is to bring out the subject, to make it pop and to capture the moment of it and presenting it to the viewer of the photo..

that may just be a background blur for you..

i believe the term u are looking for is creative flair, not creativity.

and in replying to the TS, some shots are worth taking with wider aperture.

imagine if your macro shot consisting of the subject and a very dirty / or colourful near background, with F22 you will capture both the subject and the background sharp, and the subject's presence will be lost in the picture..

that's when you use DOF to make it more "creative" or like what goldfries said "just a background blur" to isolate your subject from the background to bring attention to the subject. and if the subject's pose is right, why not you just get the eyes in focus with the rest blurred, the feel of the picture will be totally different. and if you have a macro lens, try to get it at 1:1 magnification across the entire sensor.. the subject in the picture will surely pop out even with wider aperture

yes thank you!

ahhh, well bringing out the subject to make it pop and capturing moments are fundamentals of photography. many photos bring out the subject, pop out and captured moments but they're no where near being creative.

separating subject from background has nothing to do with creativity because it's something so easily achieved.

it's just a matter of
- choice of lens
- camera to subject distance
- camera to background distance
- aperture used.

well i know separating the subject from background is easily achievable with the right gear, but what i'm trying to convey to the TS that using a shallow DOF, a shot can look creative or have some creative flair with the right composition with the right subject (especially for super macro shots with shallow DOF).

In your list, you forgot to add the most important part, composition. imagine you're taking a top down shot on a less than 1cm subject, it'll look just so plain. if it's a spider, everyone knows it's a spider, and we're not scientists documenting the subject lol.

all these add up plus the photographer skills will produce the shot. if that's not creativity, then i think photography is just pure science.

it is how the photographer utilizes your aforementioned list to create his or her desired shot, whether using ambient lighting, external lighting (multiple strobes or single strobe to have some creative lighting / shadows), widest aperture, DOF, shutter speed, composition etc. to get the best shot.. for me, a creative shot.

well, not all shots with shallow DOF come out great, it depends on the subject and the background anyway. so to the TS, do try out different settings. before you shoot, imagine what kind of shots you want for the macro subject. there's no fixed rule to shoot with high or low f numbers.

goldfries, i think piano_freak got freaked out with our discussion lol

This post has been edited by humms: Mar 11 2014, 11:34 AM

and no, I didn't miss out composition. you don't need composition to separate subject from background.

every other newbie who got their first wide aperture prime lens will just go out and do that. they have plenty of shots with good subject to background separation yet no composition.

can see plenty of it on the bokeh and 1 pic a day thread.

*technically everyone composes a photo before pressing the shutter but when we don't put composition or say 'no composition' we're saying that the photographer did not put thought into composing it in a good way.

such discussion is good actually. it's a pleasure to be chatting with you here.