Welcome to the second part of my photo series, where I hope to enlighten would be shutterbugs to some of the various consideration points of photography (though with more focus towards shooting still photos rather than action shots). This time around, I'd like to focus on the subject of focus and tricking your viewers into looking where you want them to.
There are basically 2 methods with which to achieve this:
As I mentioned in my previous entry, aperture can be used to determine the amount of light entering your sensor. This is pretty much how big of a hole being opened up to allow light to spill onto the sensor, and as you could imagine, is pretty friggin’ important. Short rule of thumb:
There are basically 2 methods with which to achieve this:
- Focusing on our subject and defocusing everything else, causing a contrast in sharpness that will draw the eyes to the sharpest parts of an image. Same thing can be done using light/dark, again removing information from something to make the remaining parts more important.
- Composition via colors, and ratios, manipulated to create points of interest that guide our vision along to settle on the areas we want them focusing on. Unfortunately this part is something that can be a bit hit/miss as not everyone perceive things the same way.
As I mentioned in my previous entry, aperture can be used to determine the amount of light entering your sensor. This is pretty much how big of a hole being opened up to allow light to spill onto the sensor, and as you could imagine, is pretty friggin’ important. Short rule of thumb:
Smaller aperture number = Bigger hole
Thing is, aperture also pulls double duty as it
also creates an area of focus for your image. Using a larger aperture (size of the hole, not the number) will narrow your field of focus, causing the
background to blur. This effect is called bokeh, which can be used to tell the
viewer where you want them to be looking as naturally, the eyes are drawn to
what is in sharpest focus, rather than that blurry blob in the back. Using this
trick you can use this to direct where you want them looking, rather than just
wandering about with their eyes. Just keep in mind that you can’t stop people
guessing at the details that are not there…I should also note that simply having a lens that is capable of a wider aperture does not guarantee this effect, as there is also sensor cropping to factor in.
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