yoda

[sobi]

i read about a few people not really being into animal photos, but i had the urge to shoot him so here it is........not to mention he is THE coolest cat ever to be. I was also surprised at how difficult it was to shoot him due to his lack of cooperation in staying in a desirable position for a pose.

 

[mrsid99]

Good try but like always with me...need more DOF!

 

[sobi]

**edited**

 

[sobi]

not sure what you mean. The nose is sharp, the eyes are out of focus, the ears are blurred, and the shelves in the back are WAY out of focus. please explain to the noob! what would you do different and how would I acheive that; with what settings?

 

[mrsid99]

Now you don't really expect me to know how to fix it do you?
My job here is to complain about lack of it!
All kidding aside, I'd love to see all of any pic completely in focus but as Scotty often remarked "You canna change the laws of physics Cap'n".
What little I do know is that a smaller aperture gives greater DOF but then you need more light to compensate either through greater illumination, faster ASA or longer exposure or some combination thereof.
Longer exposure is out in your case because cats are very mobile so you get to play with the other variables.
One thing that could be done is to focus on a central point say in this case between the nose and the eyes and try to spread the area in focus out as much as possible.

 

[MuffinJuice]

cats particularly, animals can have beautiful eyes, dont hesistate, but dont always, get the eyes in focus. its your shot, i just love cat eyes.

 

[manda]

but that nose is so adorable!
gorgeous puddy :heart:

 

[mrsid99]

Thank you Manda, straight to the point as always!
The worst of it is that I agree with you!

 

[sobi]

i had the smallest apature possible................2 on my cam. :?
guess I'll have to toy around with some other settings.

 

[sobi]

and is this better for a DOF example?

 

[bogleric]

I don't care for cats, but I do like the cat picture. I would have preferred to have just a little more in focus on the cat as you approached the eyes. Sid is a little confused here though because you would actually need to reduce the Depth of Field to creater a larger in focus area, perhaps a 2.8 apeture.

Great shot though.... I sometimes wonder if people don't like animal shots for a couple of different reasons... either they don't appreciate the difficulty to get the shots or they don't have the patience themselves.

 

[voodoocat]

Sid is a little confused here though because you would actually need to reduce the Depth of Field to creater a larger in focus area, perhaps a 2.8 apeture.

You're thinking of reducing the apeture. Shallow DOF = shallow focus

 

[bogleric]

back to apeture 101 for me.

 

[voodoocat]

back to apeture 101 for me.

It's damn confusing. you always wonder if what you're saying is what you think it is or the opposite...

 

[ksmattfish]

Boy, this thread has gotten confusing really quickly. Let me confuse you even more.

Depth of field: area of your photo that is in sharp focus. If you focus on your subject the DOF will extend in front of and behind the point you are focused on. In most cameras the DOF is parallel to the film plane. With view cameras and shift lenses you can alter the position of DOF in relationship to the film plane. This would allow what appears to be a greater DOF (it is actually just a repositioning of the DOF, you are using the height or width of the DOF rather than the depth (HOF? WOF??)). This is useful in close focusing situations.

Besides aperture, DOF is also affected by lens focal length and distance to subject. Wide angle lenses have greater DOF than telephoto lenses at a given aperture; the DOF at f/8 on a 28mm lens is huge (measured in feet), while the DOF at /8 on a 200mm lens is pretty small (measured in inches). The closer the lens is focused the shorter the DOF. With the lens focused at 20 feet f/16 is very deep; focused at 3.5 feet f/16 is very shallow.

Aperture: the hole in the lens. Controls exposure and DOF. The smaller the aperture, the greater the DOF. A non-photographic example of this is folks who need glasses for night driving: in the daytime when it's bright their pupils close down (small aperture/greater DOF), at night when it is dark their pupils open up (large aperture/less depth of field). Aperture size is refered to using f/number.

The f/# is arrived at by dividing the focal length by the actual aperture size. Example: a lens with a focal length of 100mm is at f/2 when the aperture is 50mm wide, it is at f/4 when the aperture is at 25mm wide, it would be at f/22 when the aperture is set to 4.5mm wide. So the larger the f/#, the smaller the actual aperture size, and the greater the DOF.

Old school lenses went from widest to smallest: f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, f/32, f/45, f/64.... Each number was approximately one stop (a halving or doubling of the amount of light). This standard helped the photographer doing math in the field. Auto-focus SLRs have built in computers and can do the everchanging math of the big zoom lenses so you will often see non-standard f/#s in the viewfinder such as f/9 or f/13.

Modern lenses are designed to stay wide open while you are looking through the viewfinder composing and focusing. When the shutter button is depressed the aperture closes down to the selected size a split second before the shutter opens, and returns to wide open when the shutter closes. Some cameras have a DOF preview feature. This allows the photographer to close down the aperture to the selected size, and DOF can be assesed through the viewfinder.

Fixed focal length lenses used to always come with a built in DOF scale on the focusing ring so that even without DOF preview the photographer knew their DOF. Zoom lenses would require something akin to a slide rule to figure it for all the possible combinations of focal lengths, aperture sizes, and distance to subject. Fortunately you can find websites that will show you how to build this device (search for "depth of field calculator").

While you're at it, search for "hyperfocus".