Depth of Field [help]

Placebo

Bit confused here, let say for example i want the object closer to me to be clear and the background to be blurred, what exactly do i do.

I have an Olympus om10, manual. Apparently the exposure is automatic, manual says it estimates the shutter speed only, anyway depending on how close the object is to me, do i just change the aperteur or do i have to change the focus accordingly aswell ?

Fajitas!

You'll need to put it at the lowest aperture, and then manually focus to whatever your preference is.

Best thing to do, shoot off 10 shots, with different settings and document the settings for each one. When you see it on paper, you'll know what works best!

Placebo

yeah ive been doing that.
thanks for the help, but when i manually focus, am i focusing the object near me or the background ? OR is it effecting both depending on what the aperture is ? the further the object the blurry ?

Fajitas!

Not exactly. The lower number on your aperture will increase the softness of what isn't in focus (Often known as bokeh)

Now, when you focus, pick a point. Roll the focus up and down, you should see the depth of field rolling up and down with it. If you have a macro lens or a macro feature on your lens use it! It'll amplify the short depth of field, which is what I think you're after!

dalk

Get a roll of film and mimic these examples. Line up a row of something and photograph them. Choose different f-stops and different points of focus. You will find that you can have everything in focus, or you can have half of the objects, or you can have something at the back in focus but everything in front out of focus etc...

Seeing as you have an older camera, the lens probably has Depth Of Field measurements on the lens itself (something that seems to have gone out of fashion), which is usefull to know. This article will explain what the numbers mean.

beans

I'm assuming you have the standard 50mm lens on your OM-10

If you have it at aperture 1.8 and you focus on an apple 4 feet away from you, you could expect everything 5cm in front of the apple and 5cm behind the apple to be in focus too. Everything outside that range will be out of focus.

Now if you were to set the aperture to 16 and focus on the same apple in the same way, you'll notice a lot more will be in focus behind the apple. Changing the aperture from the smaller numbers to the higher numbers will cause a transition from little background focus to more background focus.

With the OM-10, the camera will choose the shutter-speed depending on your aperture setting. The smaller the aperture number, the higher the shutter-speed number (big aperture = quick speed). This is known as 'aperture-priority mode' in camera-speak.

I'd suggest googling 'depth of field', 'aperture', 'manual camera settings' and maybe checking out sites like photo.net for tutorials. You have a great starter camera with a wonderful lens system - check out zuikoholics.com for lens resources

Oriel

Firstly, the object you're look to be sharp, always focus on that.
Secondly, play about with the aperture settings. The lower the number, the more blurred the background will be, but the harder the object will be to get in focus, likewise, the larger the aperter number ("f" value) the more clear the background will be and the easier both will focus.

S.

Placebo

thanks everyone for the help, specially those links, cleared it up alot.

a quick amateur offtopic question, after loading film, when u take blank shots, if u leave the lense cap on, is the whole film corrupted? my understanding was that it just wound film properly until the first proper shot appeared on scale.

Fajitas!

If the lens cap is on when you take a shot the film will be grand, there shouldn't be any light getting in!