Narrow Depth of Field and Another of its Many Uses (Two Photographs)

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Once you try shooting close-up or macro photography, you quickly learn how narrow the depth of field can get, even at a very small aperture like F16. Here I have used depth of field to catch the profile of this hopper and frame him with the background. I think few people realize that the opposite is true for subjects further away. I take a lot of bird photos at F4/F5, and it is more than sufficient to capture the bird on a branch. I was told a story about a photographer who took a group to Africa and the first night many complained that their photos were out of focus. He told them to use a larger aperture, and smaller Fstop. This would help increase their shutter speed (improving the sharpness of the photographs) and they would lose no depth of field. Of course if something gets between you and your subject that object will blur. Overall I think it’s one of the most interesting tips I have heard.