Comments on: All You Ever Wanted to Know about DOF (Depth of Field)

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:39:00 +0000

Jodi & all,

The issue with Honey involved high-speed flash sync. This is an interesting topic as well. Perhaps it can be discussed in the future. Regards

By: Honey

Honey — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:13:33 +0000

Jodi & friends … Brendan just took the time to look up both of my manuals to my D700 & my sb-800 & solve my problem. Total sweetheart … Thank you! Your site has improved my photography so much … Love it!

By: Brendan

Brendan — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:26:03 +0000

Honey, I thought about this a little more and thought of another scenario. If the situation is that you are shooting in a darker area, that may be why the camera is telling you to slow the shutter speed, so it can get enough light. Remember, the exposure (amount of light) is produced by the size of the aperture and the length of the exposure time (shutter speed). So if the camera is telling you to slow down (make longer shutter speed) the shutter, it’s probably that the available lighting is too dark. If you don’t want such long shutter times, you will need to add light (use a flash, move to brighter area, etc).

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:24:35 +0000

Very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:53:54 +0000

Honey, normally if you use a shallower DOF, (smaller f/stop, big aperture), the camera will try to balance the amount of light (exposure) by speeding up the shutter speed. So what you’re saying sounds opposite, the camera should be telling you to use a faster speed, not a lower speed.

I’m wondering if you are trying to use a built-in flash and running into the camera’s maximum sync speed. Most cameras that I know, have maximum sync speeds (the fastest speed that the shutter and flash can work together) of around 1/200th sec. In this case, your photo really need a fast shutter speed, but have reached the maximum that the camera can sync with the built-in flash. There are some ways around it. I can discuss this further, please let me know if you were using your built-in flash.

By: Honey

Honey — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:36:42 +0000

Love this post Brendan … hoping I can ask a question. Not a pro & have been shooting for about 15 years … I’m addicted. I get frustrated trying to control the DOF/shutter speed in respect to exposure. I look at my light meter (or at the first shot) & it tells me I have to lower the speed & I know I need the speed to be at least 200 so my other option is to bump up my aperature to fix exposure. Shooting in manual if I want a shallow depth of field and a faster shutter speed how do I fix exposure? I get so frustrated shooting outside knowing I don’t want to drop my speed to 60 or bump my aperature up to 16 … is the only way to fix this the plus/minus button for exposure? Sorry so wordy … I get so frustrated with this!

By: Amy Dungan

Amy Dungan — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:20:22 +0000

Great article! Thanks for taking the time to put it together!

By: Brendan

Brendan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:46:47 +0000

Thanks so much to everyone for their kind comments and thank you Jodi for publishing the article !

By: Tina Harden

Tina Harden — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:45:32 +0000

Brendan – Thanks so much for taking all the technical jargon out and putting DOF in layman’s terms. Very well written and the links are great. Very excited to see the DOFmaster for iPhone! Wahoo!

By: Tira J

Tira J — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:13:18 +0000

Thank you! This is fabulous!