Depth of field calculator

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

A nice little widget for calculating depth of field from Canon. I know there are plenty of these around but I thought this one was particularly well done.

My website: Kent wedding photographers

Wedding Quotes

The information I require to provide you with a quote for your wedding is:

1. Your planned wedding date.

2. All locations that I'll be required to attend (eg bride's home, ceremony venue, reception venue, other photoshoot locations) and, ideally, with postcodes.

3. The number of hours coverage that you require. 4-5 hours allows me to cover the essentials, but all-day coverage from bridal preps to first dance is also available.

If you're not sure, then give me an indication of the time of the ceremony and when food is due to be served. I can then give you a few options depending on the events you want covered.

With a well-designed itinerary 4-5 hours coverage allows the majority of the wedding repertoire to be covered (cake cuts and first dances are easily mocked-up) and gives between 300-500 finished images with a licence to print and distribute to friends and family on DVD. If you look through the wedding galleries you'll see the number of hours that I attended and the number of images provided for each wedding.

What will you receive?

1. All your photos will be tweaked to perfection by me using state-of-the-art digital processing software. Each hour of photography requires 3 hours of my time at the computer in post-processing.
2. Approx. 150-200 of your images will be converted to black and white (you will also receive these images in colour.)
3. I will burn DVDs with two sets of files for you. One high res (about 5Mb per picture) for printing - these print beautifully at A2 (16.5 x 23.4 inches) - and one low res (about 400Kb per picture) for viewing on your computer or e-mailing to friends.
4. I'll also burn you a presentation DVD which will allow you to show your photos using a normal DVD player (handy for showing off your photos to friends and family without computers.)
5. You will receive your DVDs within 1-2 weeks.
6. I'll post a selection of your photos online asap (generally within 4 days.)
7. Most importantly I grant you a licence to print and distribute your photos to family and friends (images can potentially be shared with commercial ventures, such as wedding venues, provided my permission is sought). This means that you can source your own prints and album and provide friends and family with copies of your photos. You don't need to pay me anything more!

I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

David

Minimum focusing distances

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

Part II of Stephen's question today (in italics). My responses are in plain text.

My brother and I were trying to take a photo of a passion flower in the garden, he with his Nikon D3 with 24-70mm f/2.8 and me with my Canon 5D MkII. Now I had perhaps argued incorrectly that I could get a sharper shot with my 85mm f/1.2 L II than he could with his zoom but his shots were better and I'm prepared to be corrected on the technical reasons as to why.

Lots of factors affect sharpness. The 85mm counts against you since you'll need a faster shutter speed to counter camera shake (at least 1/focal length). Also the minimum focusing distance of the 85mm lens is 0.95m which means the flower will occupy a smaller amount of the sensor compared to the 24mm lens which can focus much closer to the subject (the Canon version of this lens can be focused only 38cm from a subject). When you expand it to be the same size in both shots your image quality will suffer (though as you point out, the 5D Mark II is higher resolution than the D3 so this complicates matters). For a given aperture your image will have lower depth of field at 85mm compared to 24mm because of increased magnification.

See my blog post on factors affecting depth of field.

I wanted to get the whole flower in focus therefore I figured I needed a DOF of 40mm, so by using the handy iPhone App 'Simple DOF' I dialled in 85mm lens, 1.5m focus distance and then increased the f/stop until it told me I had a DOF of about 40mm. Sounds straightforward to me but in practise the shots were disappointing.

You may know that the DOF is 40mm but you need to know exactly where to focus. DOF extends in front of, and behind, the focal point but it changes with focal length! Also the DOF calculation is only a guide. You've not given yourself any margin for error.

My brother then questioned why I was using my 85mm stopped down to f/2, when I could have just used another of my lenses at f/2.8 and perhaps got the same shot.

I would have the lens stopped down to at least f/8 for a shot like this (to ensure sufficient depth of field and good sharpness) and had the camera on a tripod for real image crispness. f/8 - 11 is the sweet aperture range for most lenses (above this the image deteriorates due to diffraction).

So, a quick visit to my local camera store and they suggested some interesting explanations to me:

1) "perhaps your 85mm lens is back-focusing, as most Canon lenses do, you should calibrate it using the micro-focus adjustment procedure." - One to investigate perhaps.

Microadjustment is worth doing with the 5D Mk II (since resolution is so high and the differences are visible) but is unlikely to be responsible in this situation.

2) "when using a shallow DOF at such a close focus distance the diameter of focus is very small, what you should have done was stop down to f/8 at least." - This one really surprised me, I have always thought about the settings required to get the DOF (i.e. 40mm in example above) but never thought that I needed to think about how the diameter of the focus area is affected.

I assume they're referring to the fact that the DOF will be shallow at wide apertures - see earlier.

3) "why did you use your 85mm lens when the minimum focusing point of your other lenses is shorter, therefore making it easier to get the shot?" - this one annoyed me after spending near £2k for a prime lens I thought I'd use it as I had expected it to be sharper.

I agree! The 85mm f/1.2 L lens is probably the best portrait lens in the world (and a favourite of mine, along with the 35mm f/1.4 L) and it's therefore designed for taking shots of head-sized objects! If I were doing the flower shot I'd have reached for my 100mm f/2.8 macro lens first of all, followed by my 24-70mm f/2.8 L (which can serve as a substitute for a macro lens since its minimum focusing distance is only 38cm).

Hope this helps.

All the best,

David

My website: Kent wedding photographers

On aperture

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

Part 1 of a question from Stephen today.

Hi David,

I'm a regular reader of your blog - which is fantastic BTW - and had a discussion over the weekend on various photographic matters. I thought you would be the perfect person to enlighten me and perhaps a blog post might come of it?

Firstly lets take the subject of lens aperture. If you take a 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens and set it to 70mm at f/8, would that be the same size aperture, and therefore capture the same amount of light as a 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM set at 70mm at f/8? Now when I thought about it I did wonder whether manufacturers had a 'standard' aperture size to conform to thereby making any lens set at f/8 equal?

Thanks in anticipation,

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for the feedback.

Aperture is a unitless measure (rather than a size) - it's the focal length of the lens divided by the diameter of the diaphragm. It correlates with light-gathering ability.

As you change the focal length on your zoom lens, the diaphragm has to change to maintain a constant aperture. Not all lenses do this equally well though - L-series Canon lenses vary by only 1/3 of a stop over the focal length range which is pretty good.

f/8 at 70mm on both 24-70 lens and 70-200mm lenses means they will have the same diaphragm diameter. They won't be letting in precisely the same amount of light however. It will be close but lenses vary in their ability to transmit light - it depends upon the number of elements within the lens, the albedos of the materials used and probably lots of other factors too.

Yours,

David

My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings at Canterbury Registry Office

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

A selection of photographs from Erina and Paul's wedding at Canterbury Registry Office (yes, I know it ought to be Register Office but it's such a common error it's worth using both!) and The Marine, Whitstable, in May 2008 - see their wedding gallery. I was starting to get a bit more adept at using flash at this point - no more harsh shadows behind subjects.

My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings at the Abode, Canterbury

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

A selection of Victoria and Sean's wedding photos shot at the Abode, Canterbury in December 2007.










My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings in Deal

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

Back to the archives today. Laura and Paul's wedding at St George's Church, Deal in September 2007. My second outing with my Canon EOS 5D and the first time I dared to shoot at ISO 3200!

My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings at Lynsted and Norton

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

A selection of photos from my first wedding shot with a Canon EOS 5D back in August 2007. Lorraine and Sean got married at St Peter and St Paul's Church in Lynsted, near Sittingbourne, with the reception at Norton Village Hall, near Faversham.











My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings at The Kent International Hotel, Ramsgate

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

A selection from September 2005. Margaret and Ron's wedding at Ramsgate Register Office and The Kent International Hotel, Ramsgate.

My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings at The Margate Winter Gardens

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

A further offering from the archives - September 2006 on this occasion. Felicity and Chris' wedding at the Church of St Mildred in Canterbury followed by the Margate Winter Gardens.





My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings at The Fayreness Hotel, Broadstairs

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

Another wedding from the archives. Jenny and Dan got married at Ramsgate Register Office and The Fayreness Hotel in Broadstairs in September 2005.






My website: Kent wedding photographers

Weddings at Ramsgate Register Office

My website: Wedding Photographers in Kent

For further photography-related information check out my tips for photographers.

A very small selection of shots from my first paying wedding for Jo and Cliff back in June 2005. Shot on 35mm with a Canon EOS 5 and Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 and Canon 70-200 f/4 L lenses. I was so nervous I dreamt about wedding photography for the whole week before the event!







My website: Kent wedding photographers