Denis' Workshop
Page Three

Composition Continued:

Another element of composition is how you want to render the photograph. That is do you want everything in sharp focus, or do you want the foreground and subject in sharp focus with the background blurred, or do you want only the subject in sharp focus and everything around it in a soft blur.

Actually, this involves other techniques other than just composition. It also involves lens choices and aperture settings to a great degree, as well as an understanding of depth of field, while some understand this last term better as depth of focus.

Depth of field, or depth of focus, refers to how much of your composition is in focus from front to back. A shallow depth of focus means only a portion, usually the prime subject is in focus, while great depth of field or depth of focus means everything within your frame is in apparent sharp focus. Both choice of lens and aperture settings will determine how much depth of field one will have.

In general, the wider the lens, the more depth of field one will have. Going the other way, the longer the lens, the less depth of field one will have. Therefore, in general, wideangle lenses have great depth of field and telephoto lenses have shallow depth of field. With aperture, the wider the setting, f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.8, etc. the shallower depth of field one has, while smaller apertures, f/16, f/22, f/32, etc. have great depth of field. So, lets say you are using a 24mm lens at f/22. With this combination everything in your composition will have apparent sharp focus in most cases, while using a 300mm lens at f/2.8. let's say, will have a very shallow depth of field. Both situations have their uses.

Say you are at a great scenic location, overlooking the Grand Canyon or facing the mittens at Monument Valley. In such a case you'd most likely want everything in the frame rendered sharply, everything with great depth of field. To do so you'd use a short focal length 50mm, 35mm, 28mm, 24mm or shorter, and use a small aperture setting like f/16 or f/22 to render everything in sharp focus.

On the other hand, there might be times where you'll want to take of photo of of a bird, animal, or portrait of a child where you'd want only that subject in focus and everything around it rendered in a soft blur so as not to distract from your subject. In this case you'd want to use a telephoto lens at wide aperture, something like an 85mm, 135mm, 200mm or longer lens, using apertures like f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4.

Composition Assignment #2:
Take a variety of photos based on the above. Using your widest lens or your zoom lens at its shortest focal lengths, set your camera to Aperture Priority and take a series of photos using the len's maximum aperture (smallest aperture number) and then take the same photos using the len's smallest aperture setting (largest aperture number), of things like flowers, animals, birds, pets, people. Once that is done, then do the same with the longest telephoto lens you have. The greater the range between the widangle and telephoto lenses you use, the more difference you'll see in your results. This assignment will help you learn what you can do in these situations and help you determine how you'll want to render your photo compositions.

Go to Page Four for the third basic element of photography, Personal Vision.

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