ADVANCED CAPTURE TECHNIQUES

DEPTH OF FIELD

Squashes, Helen Neylan, The Very Ordinary Organic Cookbook, Copyright 2011

Artichokes, Helen Neylan, The Very Ordinary Organic Cookbook, Copyright 2011

The image above of the Squashes employs a shallow depth of field. Taken in natural daylight using a Nikon D80, Sigma telephoto lens at f 4. This allows the photographer to keep just that which they want in focus, with the objects in the background totally out of focus. Whereas, the image shown to the right taken with the same equipment and in the same light shows a deep depth of filed to capture the whole of the Artichoke in focus, but slightly out of focus in the background at f 16.




When we look at Chic Simple, we see some of the earliest ever uses of the employ of depth of field in food photography. Below, we see an image of a spoon, offering to the viewer some of the food from the recipe. This type of ADVANCED CAPTURE TECHNIQUE, as above uses the camera to select the depth of field and therefore the point at which the photographer wishes the viewer to concentrate on the finished image. The suggestion of the spoon links the food with the idea of cooking or preparing the food, and so is a very clever technique for the purposes of a cookery book.

Image by Gentl & Hyers: Chic Simple, 1995