Depth of Field

[lizzy310]

I took this picture in Portugal 2 years ago and at the time I knew nothing about F stops and all that. I think I was just guessing at the time. It was taken at F4 and 1/250th on my G10 point and shoot. If I would have taken it at a higher F stop, would the little bit through the arrow slot have been in focus better? I so wish I could go back and retake so many pictures. Oh well...starting now, I am learning lots of new things that i will make use of on future trips.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Liz,

I took this picture in Portugal 2 years ago and at the time I knew nothing about F stops and all that.

I think I was just guessing at the time. It was taken at F4 and 1/250th on my G10 point and shoot.

If I would have taken it at a higher F stop, would the little bit through the arrow slot have been in focus better?

In a word; yes, although you'd need to encourage it to focus on the ivy at the far side of the wall and not the nearest bits as seems to have happened.

f/8 or f/11 if the G10 does it would be better, raise the iso to 200 and lower the shutter speed a bit, basically, setting the camera, in aperture priority mode to f/8 and iso to 200 and let the automatics take care of the shutter speed.

Turning the camera sideways would help too, as the subject is a vertical orientation, but I could show you a lot of my shots where I made the same mistake

Cheers,

[speedneeder]

...If I would have taken it at a higher F stop, would the little bit through the arrow slot have been in focus better?

In this case yes, but you should understand this is because the focal point was in the foreground. Assuming you want both the foreground and the background in focus, then yes, a higher F stop would produce that result. Assuming you wanted only the background in focus, then no, this is not correct.

[Steaphany]

If you really need/want to maximize your depth of field, a small Aperture is not the only way to achieve it. You'll be better off setting the focus of your lens to the Hyperfocal distance.

For any Aperture setting, your lens will have a Hyperfocal distance that will yield the maximal depth of field.

This video from Adorama does a great job both explaining Hyperfocal distance and how it's used:

[lizzy310]

Thanks Steaphany, but I don't think the G10 does that. It has lots of things it does, but I never saw Hyperfocal in the instructions. It is only a point and shoot. I will save the link though and watch it.

If you really need/want to maximize your depth of field, a small Aperture is not the only way to achieve it. You'll be better off setting the focus of your lens to the Hyperfocal distance.

For any Aperture setting, your lens will have a Hyperfocal distance that will yield the maximal depth of field.

This video from Adorama does a great job both explaining Hyperfocal distance and how it's used: