DOF question

[Parrot of Doom]

Whats the best way of taking images with an extremely shallow depth of field, but on a wide angle (eg not macro)?

I've seen some pictures on the internet that appear to be taken on a standard say 35mm lens, but with a DoF of only a few inches set a good distance away from the camera. I'm not talking about long lenses either.

Is this just touching up, or are there lenses designed to create this effect?

[_dobbo_]

Only way to get shallower depth of field is with a larger aperture.

Something like a 50mm f/1.8 would be the cheapest way to get this. Not much DOF there.

Otherwise a long lens will give shallow DOF at larger apertures.

edit to add - on a 1.5x crop digital camera, 50mm f/1.8 will give about 6cm DOF at 1.5 metres.

Edited by _dobbo_ on Thursday 21st September 21:54

[scalper]

Probably they were taken with a large format camera

Due to the fact that the film area is larger than on a 35mm camera it has what we might call an "inverse crop factor". With a 5x7 camera a 90mm lens gives the same angle of view of an 18mm on 35mmfilm camera, a 180mm is equal to a 35mm, a 240mm is equal to 50mm., etc...
For a given angle of view the lenses have a much longer focal lenght compared to a 35mm camera. This alone gives a much shallower depth of field when using large format cameras: if you use a camera where a 180mm is a wideangle lens, even in your wideangle shots the depth of field will be very very limited.

In addition to that, with a large format camera you have the possibility to move the plane of focus by varying the angle between the film plane and the lens plane. This allows you to control the depth of field of your photograph by either increasing it or reducing it

[beano500]

Parrot of Doom said:

Is this just touching up...?

Well a litlle bit of Ye Olde Photshoppe goes a long way: copy layer, apply gausian blur, apply mask, wield a brush...

Er, not that I'd be caught doing any of that shenanigans meself...like...allegedly...

[Tuna]

Angle of lens does not dictate depth of field (directly at least). It all comes down to aperture - the wider the lens goes, the shallower the DOF. Smaller F-numbers = wider open.

[GetCarter]

Or another way of thinking about it is to put the camera into speed priority mode and take the highest speed shot you can. This way you will get the most shallow DOF the lens and light will allow at any given time.

[Parrot of Doom]

scalper said:

Probably they were taken with a large format camera

Due to the fact that the film area is larger than on a 35mm camera it has what we might call an "inverse crop factor". With a 5x7 camera a 90mm lens gives the same angle of view of an 18mm on 35mmfilm camera, a 180mm is equal to a 35mm, a 240mm is equal to 50mm., etc...
For a given angle of view the lenses have a much longer focal lenght compared to a 35mm camera. This alone gives a much shallower depth of field when using large format cameras: if you use a camera where a 180mm is a wideangle lens, even in your wideangle shots the depth of field will be very very limited.

In addition to that, with a large format camera you have the possibility to move the plane of focus by varying the angle between the film plane and the lens plane. This allows you to control the depth of field of your photograph by either increasing it or reducing it

Thanks, I think thats exactly what I've seen. I'm beggared if I can find any photographs currently, but I'm sure you know what I mean Unfortunately I won't be buying a LF camera anytime soon, so I think I'll scrap the idea. It was just idle curiosity

[m12_nathan]

www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

[poah]

Parrot of Doom said:

Whats the best way of taking images with an extremely shallow depth of field, but on a wide angle (eg not macro)?

I've seen some pictures on the internet that appear to be taken on a standard say 35mm lens, but with a DoF of only a few inches set a good distance away from the camera. I'm not talking about long lenses either.

Is this just touching up, or are there lenses designed to create this effect?

to get wide angle shallow DOF you need to take wide open and have your main subject very close up.

[Parrot of Doom]

poah said:

Parrot of Doom said:

Whats the best way of taking images with an extremely shallow depth of field, but on a wide angle (eg not macro)?

I've seen some pictures on the internet that appear to be taken on a standard say 35mm lens, but with a DoF of only a few inches set a good distance away from the camera. I'm not talking about long lenses either.

Is this just touching up, or are there lenses designed to create this effect?

to get wide angle shallow DOF you need to take wide open and have your main subject very close up.

Thanks but the images I refer to aren't close to the camera, but I think the question has been answered already