Exploring a Shallow Depth of Field.
When Sally Russick set our April Moment of Focus photo prompt, a chance to explore using our cameras to capture a picture with shallow depth of field, I warmed to the task of doing something a bit more technical with my camera, which has manual as well as automatic settings. I read Sally's hints, I even read my camera
manual. I was set.
But, as with other times that I have tried to "go manual" with the camera's settings, I found that what that camera is best at is doing things on automatic. With an infinite depth of field. Above is the closest I could come with some of the options on the camera. So I got going in the Picmonkey editing site, and came up with these reasonable facsimiles of altered depth of field. Sally made a video about using Pixlr's photo editing to blur the background, but my computer does not seem to like to play those videos. And frankly, using Pixlr is beyond my capabilities.
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| Focal Pixelate |
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| Spotlight |
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| Zoom Blur |
Maybe some day I will get the hang of using depth of field to improve my photography. I kind of like that last one. And did you notice what the subject is? Daffodil buds! Spring!!
The daffodils have been blooming here all week, and It makes me so happy! I like the different blur effects you did, especially the zoom blur. Very cool!
ReplyDeleteI love the different effects you tried on these beautiful daffodils!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful daffodils, wish I had some :) Great effects on those photos.
ReplyDeleteI like the last one too! I am right there with you on the puzzles of photography. My camera has a program mode "P" which seems to give me good results if I play around with the settings. I think it's a happy medium between manual and automatic. Your daffodils look like the are just ready to pop!
ReplyDeleteGreat photos! I like all the effects you used. I can't find my manual and have not mastered this depth of field yet.
ReplyDeleteMy manual exists only as a PDF file on my hard drive. I think the camera came with a disc, and it was on there. But it has not been very helpful getting me out of "automatic."
DeleteOh you've had fun with these photos - great effects!!
ReplyDeleteBeti you found a good subject for your photos. I like the zoom blur best too.
ReplyDeleteI think Spring may actually be strong enough now to beat Winter back
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