Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/08/15

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: Re: Depth of Field?
From: cmiller@berkshire.net (Curt Miller)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 12:52:00 -0400 (EDT)

>Depth of what? Why on earth would you want any of that spoiling your
>pictures? Turn that ring to the right, and mash the shutter button! Make em
>soft and shallow!!!
>Regards,
>
>
>Ben W. Holmes
>Boulder, CO

Yea, but Ben, that's great for portrait work - I do it all the time - but it
is terrible on some landscape work.

Actually, though, I think most photographers do need a bit of work on this
seemingly very simple subject.  It would really work to their benefit if
they understood the idea of "circles of confusion" and DOF as related to
print size and the degree of acceptable sharpness in a print.  The most
common error I see newbies make is 'wasting DOF.'  By this I mean setting a
lens to absolutely infinity at say f/8 is a waste of DOF relative to the
foreground.  Another thing I've found people don't get is aerial work: you
can stop down a lens only as far as needed to give maximum sharpness for
that particular lens (usually f/4 - f/5.6), set the lens to infinity and
shoot at the highest SS possible.  I get tack sharp images with my Leica
when hanging out of a Cessna by doing this.  The moral here is that
everythings at infinity anyway so you don't need and DOF.

Curt