Project 2 -
Exercise 2.4: Woodpecker
"Find a subject in front of a background with depth. Take a very close viewpoint and zoom in; you'll need to be aware of the minimum focusing distance of your lens. Focus on the subject and take a single shot. Then, without changing the focal length or framing set your focus to infinity and take a second shot.
Again without moving the camera, select a very small aperture and find a point of focus that will give you acceptable sharpness throughout the entire field, from foreground to infinity. Take a third shot and add it to the first two to make a set."
Series 1
1 2 3
ISO 1100 ~ 38mm ~ f/4.8 ~ 1/60sec
ISO 1000 ~ 38mm ~ f/4.8 ~ 1/60sec
ISO 1600 ~ 38mm ~ f/20 ~ 1/30sec
Series 2
1 2 3
ISO 200 ~ 38mm ~ f/4.8 ~ 1/160sec
ISO 200 ~ 38mm ~ f/4.8 ~ 1/200sec
ISO 3600 ~ 38mm ~ f/32 ~ 1/60sec
Series 3
1 2 3
ISO 200 ~ 55mm ~ f/5.6 ~ 1/400sec
ISO 200 ~ 55mm ~ f/5.6 ~ 1/400sec
ISO 2000 ~ 55mm ~ f/32 ~ 1/100sec
This was an interesting exercise, in the way that I found the first two shots easy enough to produce in the three series but trying to get sharpness throughout the entire field in shot 3 of each series was a new experience and the first time I had used manual focus on my camera. It took me a few attempts but by the third go it all seemed to come together.
Image 3 for the first two series could be in better focus. The left hand side of the window in series 1 in image 3 is a little blurry and there is some noise in image 3 of series 2. Image 3 of series 3 seems to be near perfect and there seems to be acceptable focus throughout the entire field of the shot.
When thinking about how the point of focus structures the composition, we know that our eyes immediately gravitate towards the part of a photo that is in focus and sharp - it is easier for our eyes to look at an object completely in focus than an object that is out of focus. Using depth of field gives the photo a purpose and leads the viewers eye to the point that the photographer intended.
In image 1 of all three series our our eyes are drawn to the the foreground of the photo because this is where the point of focus was intended. The backgrounds in image 1 of all three series is out of focus and harder for the human eye to look at - so as I said before our eyes are drawn to what is in focus.
The background in images 2 are the focal point. We look past the foreground to where the shot is sharpest - the background.
In each series image 3 we can take in the shots as a whole because the entire field is in focus. We are free to explore the whole frame.