Selective focusing
Get different looks by changing the focus distance
Adjusting the focus and depth of field might increase sharpness and improve the technical quality of a picture, but it doesn’t always enhance its overall mood and appeal.
Setting a relatively large aperture to minimize the depth of field, and selectively focusing on a detail, will enable the rest of the picture to appear soft and indistinct. Take this series of shots: selectively focusing on a different part of the flower gives each image a subtly different feel to the rest.
When you’re shooting without the aid of a tripod, you may be forced to use a larger aperture just to achieve a shutter speed fast enough to suppress camera shake. An Image Stabilizer lens can help, of course, as can increasing the ISO. But if your exposures still aren’t short enough to freeze vibrations, you’ll end up with an image that’s blurred, whether you got it in focus or not – no good at all.
To maximize the depth of field you’re working with, keep the back of the camera (and therefore the imaging sensor inside) parallel with the details you want to record in sharp detail. For instance, when you’re taking pictures of a butterfly, try keeping the camera parallel with the insects wings. When you’re photographing a flower, you may be able to pull more detail into the depth of field by shooting it from directly above.
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Depth of field increases at greater distances, so if you want to make more of the subject appear sharp, try shooting from farther away and cropping the image later