“Use a combination of wide apertures, long focal lengths and close viewpoints to take a number of photographs with shallow depth of field. (Remember that smaller f numbers mean wider apertures.) Try to compose the out-of-focus parts of the picture together with the main subject. Add one or two unedited sequences, together with relevant shooting data and an indication of your selects, to your learning log.”
I’ve gone a bit over the top here, using a 400mm lens with various apertures ranging from wide open at f/5.6 to smaller settings, to demonstrate the shallow depth of field produced by longer lenses.
At f/5.6, you can clearly see the razor-thin depth of field, with only a small portion of the image in focus. As the aperture is stopped down to f/16, the depth of field gradually increases, bringing more elements into focus. Beyond f/16, the changes become less noticeable.
