What depth of field?

[Cutter]

Hi everyone, could someone tell me what sort of DOF I should be trying to achieve when taking bird photographs. Lets say a small Gold finch ? and also a slightly larger bird ?
I thought the closer you got the bigger the DOF but thats not the case having studied the DOF calculator.

[matt wilson]

totally the opposite ...........peronally I like to see distracting backgrounds blurred .But that's just me .

[cosmicma]

anyhting from f4 to f8 depending on light conditions

or if your well off f2.8 at anything above 200mm

[digitalvirgin]

Very difficult to offer a rigid answer, DoF is relevent to how you want your subject to sit in its environment. Shallow depth help isolate a subject against a cluttered background, but there isnt a hard and fast rule. With bird photography there are so many different approaches you can take. Remember, DoF is only one of many creative techniques you can apply to an image. Probably more important is to ensure a largest DoF when shooting moving birds so you stand a better chance of keeping them in focus, but watch you shutter speed is fast enough to freeze action, if thats what you want to show.
Best advice is to go and shoot at all settings, see how it effects the image and apply those settings in order to portray the subject how you feel it should be portrayed.Blurr can show speed in moving birds, background detail can show how a bird sits in its environment.

[cosmicma]

ok i'l give a more serious answer rather than a one liner altrhough the one line answer isnt that far off

most bird photography starts off as a matter of record
once you have photo's of a particular species ones you are happy with you then think about photographing the same species in a more creative way
when a person asks what appeture should i use it usually means they are still in the matter of record stage ( literelly ponting the camera at the bird and pressing the button before it flies off ) any body who has photographed birds to any extent have all been there ( i know i have ) so setting the camera at say f4 what will we get ??

as you can see from this first photo taken at 1/800th of a second at F4 the head and eye is in nice sharp focus but this soon drops off by the time we get to the further end of the body making the tail completly out of focus
bear in mind the long tailed tit has one of the smallest bodies of all british birds



another at around 1/300th of a second at f4 shows because the bird is side on all the bird is in sharp focus leavin a nice blur to the background so F4 would be quite acceptable in these cicumstances



at F7.1 the whole of the bird is in sharp focus if the bird was shot at F4 part of the bird would be out of focus because of the angle



these photo's are of the smaller species we come accross if we were photographing something larger to keep the whole bird in focus we would have to keep an apeture of at least f7 or above
this is demonstrated in the next photo taken at 1/250th of a second at F7 of a pheasant where most of the body is in focus but drops off by the time you get to the tail



hope this gives you more of an insight of what happens at different appeture settings

so... like i said in my first post F4 to F8 should do the job

[Cutter]

Originally Posted by cosmicma

ok i'l give a more serious answer rather than a one liner altrhough the one line answer isnt that far off

most bird photography starts off as a matter of record
once you have photo's of a particular species ones you are happy with you then think about photographing the same species in a more creative way
when a person asks what appeture should i use it usually means they are still in the matter of record stage ( literelly ponting the camera at the bird and pressing the button before it flies off ) any body who has photographed birds to any extent have all been there ( i know i have ) so setting the camera at say f4 what will we get ??

as you can see from this first photo taken at 1/800th of a second at F4 the head and eye is in nice sharp focus but this soon drops off by the time we get to the further end of the body making the tail completly out of focus
bear in mind the long tailed tit has one of the smallest bodies of all british birds

[
another at around 1/300th of a second at f4 shows because the bird is side on all the bird is in sharp focus leavin a nice blur to the background so F4 would be quite acceptable in these cicumstances

[at F7.1 the whole of the bird is in sharp focus if the bird was shot at F4 part of the bird would be out of focus because of the angle


these photo's are of the smaller species we come accross if we were photographing something larger to keep the whole bird in focus we would have to keep an apeture of at least f7 or above
this is demonstrated in the next photo taken at 1/250th of a second at F7 of a pheasant where most of the body is in focus but drops off by the time you get to the tail



hope this gives you more of an insight of what happens at different appeture settings

so... like i said in my first post F4 to F8 should do the job

Wow thanks to you all. Cosmica brilliant in depth answer with images to match. I am greatful for the time you have spent, but I am sure there will be many members on this forum that will be greatful and find your response help move there photography on.
And yes, I am at the point and shoot stage, but trying to become as you, a person who can be creative. thankyou again, and if I get a good shot you will be the first to know

Ps sometimes pictures speak louder than words

[Cutter]

Cosmica , because I have my camera set on manual and spot metering, when a bird lands in different places the light changes so quickly , which means changing the shutter speed, so sometimes I miss the shot. Do you think I should have the camera set to Ap preferred and set the iso to auto so the camera does it for me? or is there a better way?

[cosmicma]

i prefer the camera to be in apeture priority and alter the iso manually to keep the shutter speed up but if the background is brighter than the subject 9 times out of ten using AP will end up with the subject under exposed even with spot metering
this is where manual can help by reducing the shutter speed a stop or 2 to compensate for the background
i try to keep the iso as close to 100 as i can to minimise noise and very rarely go above 800 iso but this is more to do with the camera and how it performs at higher iso settings, take the nikon d3 for example probably the best low light camera on the market shooting at 1000 iso would be no problem but on my canon 50d the noise would be significant at the same setting

the thing about photography is nothing is ever the same we all have our own view and methods of photographing the same subjects and this is what makes it interesting
capturing wildlife is very challinging but also very rewarding

get to know your camera and how it performs in different lighting conditions and your on your way

the rest is up to you...

[Cutter]

have just come back from a shoot, would anyone like to critique my Blue tit in my gallery, any crtique welcome.

Nice one