DEPTH OF FIELD
STEVE TRIMBY
Canon EOS 6D • Canon 24 – 105 mm lens • IG: @trimbysteve
STEVE WRITES: This particular spot is a short distance from Arniston in the Western Cape. A 4x4 is helpful to get really close with all your camera gear, but you can also walk there from the village.
As with most outdoor photography, early morning or late afternoon provides the best light. I was in situ well before sunrise and enjoyed a spectacular sky for some other photos. I took this photo about an hour after sunrise.
I used a LEE Big Stopper filter, which enabled me to use a long
exposure (20 seconds, in this case). Static elements like the rocks remain sharp; moving elements like the water become silky. I seldom photograph the sea without this filter, so as to give the final image a more artistic look. My ISO was 400 and I used an aperture of f13, with the lens at 24 mm.
TOAST SAYS: Steve’s aperture of f13 was small enough to provide a wide depth of field. Everything is in focus, from the rocks in the foreground to the clouds doubling up the pretty horizon. This is the kind of depth of field that landscape photographers strive for.
Steve has turned a commonly photographed seascape on its head, thanks to his clever use of long exposure. The “trick” is made possible by the addition of the filter, which is screwed onto the front of the lens. It’s very dark and reduces the amount of light entering the lens by 10 stops. Usually, a 20-second exposure is something you’d only consider at night, because opening the shutter for such a long time in daylight, without a filter, will result in an overexposed, blown-out image. (Of course, Steve also used a tripod for stability.)
Specialist filters can be pricey, but it’s worth investing in one if you want to move into serious landscape photography. Steve’s photo is not all trickery. His composition is also excellent– the “peninsula” of rock leads your eye into the frame, which is balanced nicely according to the rule of thirds.
GERHARD VAN HELSDINGEN
Nikon D7000 • Sigma 105 mm lens
GERHARD WRITES: I live in Vermont, on the Overberg coast. One morning, after a light drizzle, I walked around my garden looking to photograph raindrops. I took this photo without a tripod because the flower was too low to the ground.
TOAST SAYS: Gerhard’s depth of field is shallow here – he used a relatively wide aperture of f5.6. Shallow depth of field works well when you want to lift out one detail in your frame, such as the droplet here. The foreground and background are still important and relevant because they provide colour and other compositional elements (the outlines of the petals create guiding lines). We can see them, but we’re not distracted by them.
Gerhard used a shutter speed of 1/800 second. That’s usually fast enough to prevent motion blur, but still, using a tripod is always recommended because it forces you to slow down and pay more attention to what you’re doing, from your exposure settings to composition.
To achieve a good exposure, your camera is forever juggling shutter speed, aperture (f-stop) and ISO (the light sensitivity of your camera’s sensor). Fiddle with one setting and it will have a knock-on effect.
Decide what’s important in your photo. Gerhard used ISO 400, but if he’d used ISO 800, he could have used an even faster shutter speed, like 1/1 600 second. Okay, such a fast shutter speed wasn’t really required – this isn’t an action photo – so maybe he could have gone for a slightly wider depth of field, by using f8 instead of f5.6.
That’s all just hypothetical. In the end he got the balance just right. The sharp detail of the water droplet, along with the bright colours of the flower, make for an attentiongrabbing photo. I like the simple composition as well, with the droplet in the left third of the frame. The rest of the frame is uncluttered, creating a feeling of openness – a garden that’s big enough to swing your arms around.
KYLE JIRA
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV • Canon 70 – 200 mm lens • IG: @kylej_photo
KYLE WRITES: I live in Harare, Zimbabwe, and took this photo in Hwange National Park. I was on an early morning game drive when we came across five lionesses and a male lion walking down the road towards us. I got as low to the ground as I could to get this shot. My shutter speed was 1/1 250 second, aperture f2.8 and ISO 100. I saw lions every day on my trip, but this was by far the best sighting and the most memorable.
TOAST SAYS: Quality gear goes a long way – the lens Kyle used is
one of the best in the Canon range. Not all lenses are created equal. Generally, the more expensive a lens is, the better the quality. A quality lens is sharper and “faster”, which means that it can shoot at a very wide aperture (letting in lots of light), which in turn allows you to use a faster shutter speed.
This Canon EF 70 – 200 mm f/2.8 IS II USM lens can shoot at an aperture of f2.8 throughout its focal range (70 – 200 mm).
But back to Kyle’s photo:
The low angle gives the photo a lot of oomph because it makes the lions stand out against the background. You feel like you’re at eye-level with the big cats – and it’s unnerving!
Kyle used the widest aperture possible (f2.8), which also gives the photo nice depth of field: Only the two lions in front are sharp, like the heroes on a poster for an action movie.
Manipulate your settings so that the photo tells the story you want it to tell. Should the hero lions be out front? Then use a narrow depth of field. Want to show the whole pack in sharper focus? Use a wider depth of field. Be watchful though. Using a narrow depth of field is risky because it’s easy to make a focusing mistake at f2.8. There’s no margin for error. Always zoom in on your camera screen and double-check your focus. A mid-range aperture like f8 and upwards – resulting in a wider depth of field – is more forgiving. Choose this option when your subjects are moving at pace; when focusing on them becomes tricky.
Rather be safe than sorry.
BRENDAN COLE
Nikon D750 • Nikon 28 – 300 mm lens
BRENDAN WRITES: I scouted this location during an early morning walk in Port Owen on the West Coast. It was grey, stormy and overcast (not great for photography) so I made a note to return in the evening.
The clouds were still heavy when I returned at sunset, but as the sun got lower it suddenly burst through a gap and filled the sky with intense colours for about 10 minutes.
I already knew what I wanted the photo to look like from my morning mission, so I quickly got into position and pressed the shutter button. I took three photos at different exposures and blended them later using editing software – this ensured a balanced exposure throughout the frame. I also did other basic edits: I adjusted the highlights, sharpness, saturation, shadows and contrast to recreate the scene as I’d experienced it.
TOAST SAYS: Follow Brendan’s example and go back to a photogenic location multiple times, waiting for perfect light and weather conditions. There’s so much to take in: the jetty that leads your eye deeper into the frame; the boat in the foreground; the sailboat in the distance; the birds in the top right corner…
That’s the perk of using a wide depth of field – everything is in focus!
ZANDER ERASMUS
Nikon D7000 • Nikon 18 – 140 mm lens • IG: @zander.erasmus
ZANDER WRITES: I took this photo near Fouriesburg in the Free State when we stayed there on our way to the coast. I had already taken the obvious photo of the sandstone cliffs outside town when I came upon this water trough. There were no animals to disturb the surface of the water – not even a breeze – and it reflected the sky like a mirror.
TOAST SAYS: You can never go wrong with a nice photo of a water trough… Zander’s skill was to notice this unusual scene in a landscape full of other, more obvious vistas. The dramatic
mountains of the Eastern Free State are made for landscape photography, but the challenge is to return from the veld with something different.
Zander used an aperture of f8, which was narrow enough to ensure that everything, from the trough to the mountains, is in focus. Aside from the reflection in the water, the texture of the stonework also catches the eye – the sandstone shows every mark left by the chisel when it was mined in the area decades ago. This detail gives the photo character and adds a little history to the frame, too.