Exploring the shallow depth of field in Macro photography

Depth of field (DOF) is a big challenge any amateur enthusiast (including myself) faces when getting into photography. Its the illusive block of focus which varies from lens to lens and from one f number to the other. I have had numerous shots in the past which I had to regret about not having enough DOF in the shot. Below is one such case where the value of this shot would be doubled if I had both these little fellows in focus (which I didn't notice at the time I shot this),

Shot at f/5.6 and at 1/320 sec.

Things get even more dicey once you step into the domain of macro photography where a low aperture value would give you unbelievably shallow depth of field, which is also hard to notice from the display at the back of ones camera. So, I decided to do a small demo using a watch I bought sometime back to demonstrate what f/2.8 yields in macro level.

In this shot, I attempted to focus on the seconds hand (which proved to be really tricky) and fire away.

There the seconds hand appear tack sharp while the everything else (which is millimeters away) appears blurred and out of focus.

The same shot was then taken by focusing on the dial (with numbers) and it gave this result

Here we see the opposite case where Casio brand name is in focus while few millimeters in front, the seconds hand is off focus.

Hope everyone who is getting into macro photography will find this useful and please feel free to discuss any related issues below.

*** Thanks Duane Jacques for suggesting I make a small article about this while we were discussing shallow DOF issues.



Akila.