In our lives we have to find out what our focus is. The same applies to photography. Although are eyes tend to see everything in focus all at once, with our cameras we can pinpoint one specific moment with a bokeh background, or we can see the entire picture clearly. These different modes of focus are known as either deep or shallow depth. It boils down to what our focus is, whether it is up close or far away. The choice is up to us, but both options make for really cool effects.

Apple-12:45pm, My apartment Oct 7 19-f/4.5-1/60-ISO200 Canon Rebel T6

For this first photo I simply used an apple that my roommate had picked from the orchards on BYUI campus. In order to get the up close and personal of the apple with the light reflecting off of it, I set in the window and had some fun with the settings. I set the aperture to f/4.5, which made the apple in focus and the background blurred. I also found that instead of just blurring the background I used the outside light to white out the rest. This turned out pretty cool and was a great start to my quest for finding the right focus.

Cello-1:56pm, Snow Building, Oct 7 19- f/3.5-1/15-ISO200 Canon Rebel T6

I love my cello. So naturally I had to take a picture of it. I was able to have more creative liberty with this one because I could choose a different angle for the coolest effect. From the low angle I could focus on the bridge part of the cello, and have the strings, both in front and behind, be blurred. the background piano also blurred shows a nice effect that illustrates not only a shallow depth of field but my love for music as well.

Apartment-2:12pm, Avonlea Apt, Oct 7 19-f/22-1/50-ISO200 Canon Rebel T6

Deep depth was a little more challenging for me. I wasn’t able to get as fun of shots because I couldn’t choose the right location. For this picture though, I did find the shadows from the posts on the sidewalk and doors of my apartment building to be pretty cool. In order to have the entire photo in focus I had to set my camera’s aperture setting to a much higher number. This was set to f/22, which made all the shadows, both close and far, in focus.

Spori-6:50pm, BYUI, Oct 8 19-f/22-1/5-ISO800- Canon Rebel T6

I really like the Spori building, so I decided to take a nice deep aperture picture of it. I set my camera to f/22, just like the last picture, and then got a lower angle in order to get the coolest look. As you can see both the building and the tree are in focus. This shows yet another example of deep depth, and while it’s not as cool as the shallow depth photos, it still shows the skill.

Finding out focus for our pictures helps us to see what is most important for the picture. Whether we want the background blurred or everything crisp is up to us and our camera settings. The same goes for our lives. We need to decide what our focus is, and then change our personal settings to allow the best result.