Controlling the Depth of Field in Your Animal Photographs

In taking any photograph, there are three elements that control exposure: shutter speed, aperture and ISO speed. You must have a good understanding of how these variables work together if you want to move beyond the realm of a beginning photographer.

Let’s start with aperture. How does the aperture setting affect the outcome of your photograph?

The aperture will determine how much of the subject, in front of and behind the point of  focus is sharp in the final photograph. This sharpness is referred to as the depth of field in the photograph.  When you choose large aperture numbers, you are going to get a lot of depth in your photographs. When you choose small aperture numbers, you will get shallow depth in your photographs.

If you are making a scenic shot, you want a lot of depth in your image, but as animal photographers, we usually want to have shallow depth in our photographs so the animal stands out from the background.

The concept is much easier to understand by studying photographs. Look at these two images of a Great Dane, and notice the amount of depth behind the dog in each photo. See how much less depth there is in the photograph labeled f 5.6  than the one labeled f16?  That’s the whole concept behind depth of field!

But be careful. Here’s another image of the Great Dane. In this one, notice how the nose is in sharp focus, but the eye area is a bit too soft—it’s a bit beyond the depth of field that the photographer chose.

So remember that it’s a fine balance between getting the entire face in sharp focus, and ending up with an unacceptable portrait because the narrow depth you chose did not allow for the entire face to be in sharp focus.

A few other hints:

If you are a beginner, and your camera has icons to help fine tune exposure, so choose  the PORTRAIT icon for close up shots. The camera will automatically set your depth of field to a smaller number.

Conversely, if you are taking a scenic shot and want a lot of depth in your photo, choose the LANDSCAPE icon. The camera will automatically set your depth to a larger number.

Good shooting!