What is Depth of Field in photography?

Depth of field simply is the amount of the picture that is in focus. A wide depth of field would be where every part of the subject is in focus and parts of the background and foreground are also in focus. A shallow depth of field would be where only a small part of the picture is in focus and everything else becomes blurry (such as where only the subject’s eye is in focus and the rest of their face is blurry).

In shooting portraits, a lot of the time you will want a shallow depth of field because it causes only your subject to be in focus, with the rest of the picture blurred so that it isn’t distracting and leads the eye onto your subject.

Depth of field is affected by a few things. The first is aperture. The wider open (smaller number) the aperture is, the more shallow your depth of field will be.

The next is the distance. To get a more shallow depth of field, get closer to your subject and place them farther away from the background.

If you want more of the picture in focus, getting farther away from your subject and putting them closer to the background will increase your depth of field.