I like to use DOF to emphasize/deemphasize elements of a photo.

Here's one taken with a Nikon D70s and the 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor. The idea was to keep my daughter's face and the flower in focus, and to let the rest of the elements fade out of focus. I think I opened the aperture all the way and shot from pretty close, so the dof should have been only an inch or so, which in retrospect was too little. Not perfectly happy with this but it illustrates the concept.

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k221/H1449-6/CampbellshallowDOF.jpg

Online depth of field calculator. (http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html)

Requires javascript.

This works better the more zoom you use.

In a way, I like the manual focus Olympus/Zuiko lenses that had the depth of focus gauge on them.


Not perfectly happy with this but it illustrates the concept.


A case for bracketing perhaps, if your camera can do aperture bracketing?

This works better the more zoom you use.

In a way, I like the manual focus Olympus/Zuiko lenses that had the depth of focus gauge on them.



A case for bracketing perhaps, if your camera can do aperture bracketing?

I agree - more lenses need DOF scales on them, or at least a hyperfocal distance for a given f/stop. You should be able to aperture bracket if you can shoot in shutter priority mode (S on the mode dial on Nikons, Tv mode on Canon)

Gaussian Blur in Photoshop. :)

Use it all the time as a non-professional, and it looks darn believable. It's probably the most common manipulatin I do in PS, but to me it's just a pain to work with multiple layers and selectioning.

I shoot with a D70 as well, and have heard great things about the new Capture NX making photo manipulations like this much easier (U-point instead of layers) in a non-destructive way (you can save as NEF if you are working on a JPEG). Will be trying it out this weekend.

Gaussian Blur in Photoshop. :)

Use it all the time as a non-professional, and it looks darn believable. It's probably the most common manipulatin I do in PS, but to me it's just a pain to work with multiple layers and selectioning.

I shoot with a D70 as well, and have heard great things about the new Capture NX making photo manipulations like this much easier (U-point instead of layers) in a non-destructive way (you can save as NEF if you are working on a JPEG). Will be trying it out this weekend.

I usually use the Lens Blur filter myself. Easy way to create the DOF is to do a gradient on the layer mask, with the specific item you want in focus masked in black. It's a little slower than Gaussian Blur, but also more customizable. I've actually got an image I'm working on right now with it - I took a break from refining the mask last night.

I used to skip over the sections in my PS books on how to make it easy on yourself with selections. After trying some techniques, I'm sold now. Very powerful, and once you know some shortcuts, easy to work with.

The new Photoshop CS3 also lets you do things non-destructively. You can import a RAW (NEF, DNG, whatever) as a "Smart Object", and apply non-destructive corrections to it, masking them as well. At any time, you can go back and tweak your RAW conversion. CS3 also lets you use Adobe Camera Raw on JPEGs now too. I don't know how much they've improved the performance of NX, but Capture 4 was an unholy pig of an application if there ever was one. Plus, I like having a unified suite to work in, so I stick to PS and Lightroom.

Free tip - 15% off Adobe purchases with coupon code AIGA07 at adobe.com. Got CS3 upgrade and Lightroom for $340. Lightroom is currently $199, goes to $299 after 4/30. CS3 upgrade is also $199 for users of Photoshop version 7 or later.

I don't know how much they've improved the performance of NX, but Capture 4 was an unholy pig of an application if there ever was one. Plus, I like having a unified suite to work in, so I stick to PS and Lightroom.

I used to think that I wanted to just stick with one application too (CS2 + ACR) and I never got into Capture 4, but Capture NX is supposedly vastly different, and seems that way, when you read the documentation. I will be testing this out over the next couple of weeks (nice 30 day trial you can download from www.capturenx.com) to see myself, but from what I gather, Capture NX will allow me to do 99% of what I want to do with an image more easily without PS. Free trial is always worth a shot, literally and figuratively. ;)

I agree - more lenses need DOF scales on them, or at least a hyperfocal distance for a given f/stop.

This is almost impossible to implement on 2 touch zooms (all modern AF zooms) as the scale changes as you zoom. The narrow focus movement of AF primes (done to increase AF speed) makes the scale so small as to be almost unusable. The scales are part of manual focus technology that has been let go for auto focus.

Leon.