Depth of Field vs. Selective Focus
February 11th, 2007
This is something that has come to my attention while surfing flickr. More than once, I’ve seen people refer to as depth of field what I had learned to be known as selective focus.
The difference is, an image displaying a shallow depth of field is said to have selective focus. The background isn’t in focus, or blurry, which draws more attention to the subject, which is in focus. It’s usually shot wide open, an f-stop of 1.8-5.6. In actuality, an image with good selective focus is showing a shallow depth of field.
On the other hand, an image with great depth of field is shot at an smaller aperture, such as f11 and higher, which results in the subject and background being in focus. This is good for shooting landscapes or if you want to emphasize perspective.
selective focus: the background is blurry
depth of field: the pillars in distance are still sharp
I don’t thing I’m being elitist or anything, I just have a peeve with people using the right terminology for things, or rather, more specific. Otherwise, it can get rather confusing. Or maybe it’s just me.
Entry Filed under: photography
2 Comments
Add your own1. Alicia | February 11th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
I have never heard of the term selective focus. I on the other hand hear depth of field all the time. Because of this I always thought DOF was selective focus.
Thanks for saying something!!
2. Rinphoto | February 13th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Hey! I followed the link here from your flickr profile page. :)
I understand what you’re saying about differentiating between shallow and wide depth of field….using selective focus and DOF. But…the term “Depth of field” refers to any area that is in focus be it shallow or large. “Selective focus” can also correctly be called “Shallow depth of field.” I learned that selective focus was more than just shallow depth of field and something that can only really be don with a view camera with tilting and swinging of the lens.
I just figure however people want to term things is fine as long as we know what they’re talking about.
:)
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed