dof

Your iPhone can nicely blur the background to enhance a photograph or video. A similar effect works well with video chat software, eliminating distractions and putting the focus on the subject. Whether you want to blur the background during a FaceTime call, snap a beautiful portrait photograph with your iPhone, or edit the background blur in pictures you've already captured, we'll explain how it works to help you get the blur you want from your iPhone.

Focus stacking is a technique typically used in macro shots to achieve a large depth of field. It’s a relatively simple concept: take many images focused at slightly different distances and combine the sharp portions to a single image in post. This 6-minute video from landscape photographer Mark Denney will show you how to utilise the technique in landscape photography.

Brazilian photographer Charles Oliveira recently put the Mitakon Speedmaster 85mm f/1.2 lens through its paces using his Nikon D600. Announced back in 2015, this is a Chinese lens that offers 85mm f/1.2 at a relatively affordable price of $799.

My name is Will Chao, and I'm a wedding photographer based in Melbourne, Australia. I’m a huge fan of large aperture lenses. I shoot every lens almost 100% of the time at the maximum aperture possible. At any given wedding, over 90% of my photos are taken with 35mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.2, and 200mm f/2.0, each at its widest aperture setting. I’m also one of the few people who use f/1.2 and f/1.4 for group shots.

The key to mastering photography is not to follow the rules but to understand them. Understanding the photographic principles that define photography is a barrier that must be broken to truly unlock your full potential as a photographer.

The problems that plague beginners are the same problems faced by the pros, that is controlling your image with the exposure triangle; shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. This article will focus on understanding depth of field (DOF).

Here's a simple little GIF that can come in handy the next time you're asked to explain how aperture and depth of field work. Created by Reddit user veedees, it shows exactly how stopping down your lens from f/1.8 all the way to f/16 translates into different depths of field.

When it comes to understanding how depth of field, focal length and other variables are affected by different film/sensor formats, it can get confusing. Fortunately, Reddit user redblue has created an incredibly useful interactive resource that will help you better visualize the factors at play by letting you change variables while swapping sensors sizes and seeing the effect in real time.

Really more useful for landscape and macro photographers who are going to be shooting through very small apertures (f/22 and above), this video from FStoppers explains what diffraction is and how it can affect your shots. The trade off, as they explain in the video, is between a large depth of field and a sharp image; and the trick is to find your "sweet-spot."

This past Monday was the 182nd birthday of photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who became famous for his high …

Here’s a simple lesson by Dylan Bennett on what depth of …

Google scientist Sam Hasinoff has come up with …

Focus stacking is a technique for creating photos with a large depth of …

A compact camera probably isn't the first thing someone would grab when looking to make a photo with an extremely shallow depth-of-field, since the small aperture and small sensor limit it in this regard. That might soon be different: a recently published patent application by Samsung shows that the company is looking into producing achieving shallow depth of fields with compact cameras by using a second lens to create a depth map for each photo.

Learning how to control depth of field with your camera isn’t too difficult, but do you know the science …

The Frazier Ultimate lens is like the universe’s anti-matter to the Canon 50mm f/1.0 that we shared …

DOF Calculator is an app for Android phones that helps you easily calculate …

The concept of hyperfocal distance is used in landscape photography to achieve the greatest depth …

People often use a shallow depth of field in portraiture to separate a subject from the distracting background, …