Single Bug

[tbutler]

I'm on record as not being terribly interested in flower and vegetation shots, when critiquing others' photography. So I suppose I'm being a hypocrite for taking and posting shots like this. ;_;

It is an example of a type of shot I'm trying to get more practice on. I normally gravitate to inclusive 'scene' shots, landscape and/or architecture; using a long telephoto lens to focus on one small detail while blurring out the rest of the frame is a common photo technique, and something I should learn. But in terms of 'things I can shoot like that, on the way home from work'... well, it's mostly flowers and vegetation. And when I get a successful result, I am interested enough to share it... I am a hypocrite. :(

Comments

[yhlee]

It's okay! :) I think it came out well--I don't know the term for it but I love how the plant and the bug are all in one crisply focused plane while everything beyond it is so blurred, that contrast--is that called depth of field or am I very confused about my photography terminology?

[tbutler]

That's pretty much right. Depth of field is how much of the picture is in focus, or the depth of the focal plane - it can be anything from a few millimeters (which is about what this was), to a meter or two, to infinity. (You can set most lenses so that everything from a certain point out to infinity will be in acceptably sharp focus; this is called the hyperfocal distance.)

When you focus a lens, you're moving the focal plane back and forth until the part of the picture you want is in focus. The depth of field is effectively controlled by two things: Aperture and magnification of the subject. Making the aperture wider makes the depth of field narrower; increasing the magnification (effectively moving the subject closer to you, either by moving yourself or using a higher zoom setting) also makes the depth of field narrower.

So to get a picture like this, with a very narrow depth of field, you want to use a wide aperture setting and a high magnification. In this case, I used a telephoto lens with a magnification about 10x a normal field of view.

One final term you'll often see used about these kind of shots is bokeh. Basically, bokeh is the quality of a blurred background; there isn't a precise definition, and it's a pretty subjective thing. In general, 'good' bokeh is smooth and doesn't distract from the subject; 'bad' bokeh calls attention to itself and away from the subject. However, some photographers deliberately try to make bokeh that calls attention to itself - rendering lights in the background as bubble-like circles, for example - as an artistic effect.

[tbutler]

This is a pretty good blog post on aperture/depth of field and how it works, in basic language: https://macphun.com/blog/what-is-camera-aperture-in-photography-and-what-does-it-do