Focus (Exercise)

The followings are two different exercises included in the INTRODUCTION section of TAOP.

The first exercise consists in taking a few pictures using a wide aperture and different focus points to compare the results. Let's take a look!

Focus on front subject.

Focus on middle subject.

Focus on last subject.

Comparing the results I'm asked to decide which one I like the most and why. Honestly that's a very tough question, I can very easily see a good use for all of them depending on the message that you wish to give through your picture.

For instance the first picture would be the most common action, to focus the foreground interest. I would find it useful to give a feeling of "the beginning of something in our life, a career..."

The last picture can be used when trying to express a feeling of being left alone.

Out of the 3 of them I must say I feel more interested about the last one, I guess basically because it's a different point of view and uncommonly seen technique.

The second exercise is about using different aperture values and compare the achieved depth of field. Here are the samples:

f1.4  1/13sec

f5.6  1.0sec

f16  8.0sec

Comparing the 3 of them becomes very clear of how much the depth of field varies when using different aperture values:

In the first picture the depth of field is so tight that even the focused subject seems a bit blurred even though that the camera was set in a tripod.

In the second picture more content is revealed and we can now clearly see the shape of the last subjects although they are still out of focus.

The last picture however shows everything in focus, from front to end with no difference. Everything becomes so sharp that I even had to spend a couple of minutes removing dust spots from my sensor in photoshop!