Controlling the depth of field

Do you want pillow-soft blur or scientific degrees of sharpness in your flower pictures?

Depth of field is a creative tool that you can use to make parts of a flower appear sharper or softer. The distance you are from the subject makes a big difference to the depth of field. The closer you are, the shallower the depth of field becomes – with areas in front of and beyond the focus point appearing softer. To make more of a flower appear sharply focused, try shooting from further away and cropping the image later.

The choice of aperture also plays a key role. A large aperture such as f/1.4 or f/2.8 will reduce the depth of field, while a small aperture such as f/11 or f/16 will expand it. When you’re extremely close to the subject, you may find that even the smallest aperture available on your lens doesn’t bring all of the subject into sharp focus. But there are a few reasons why this isn’t always desirable. For example, small apertures don’t deliver the sharpest detail despite having the deepest depth of field. They also let in less light, which means exposure times can be longer – increasing the risk of blurred shots when you’re shooting handheld.

f/11 – Detail effect Use wide apertures to reduce the depth of field (left) and smaller apertures to expand it (right). Wide apertures create DoF effects for more arty results, and smaller apertures more detail.

f/3.2 – DoF effect