Many people never worry about DOF. Some, however, employ it creatively by manipulating the f-stop settings on their camera's lens.

Opening the lens diaphragm wide open gives you a very, very shallow DOF zone, while closing down to the smallest aperture gives you the most extended zone of sharp focus that lens is capable of.

Creative use of DOF includes the somewhat traditional informal portrait of a person outdoors, where a large aperture is used to deliberately throw the background out of focus, drawing the eye's attention to the sharply focused person. Another commonly seen application of DOF is shooting a long line of subjects (runners in a race strung out along the track, a long line of railway cars, etc.) where all of them from front to back seem to be in sharp focus: the photographer used a much smaller aperture to achieve this effect.

Users of 35mm Minox cameras have the ability to change their lens openings, giving them creative control over depth of field in their photographs.

Users of adjustable focus Minox 8 x 11 cameras also have a surprising degree of creative control over depth of field even though the cameras use fixed aperture lenses (F/5.6 on the EC and ECX models, F/3.5 on the others). The secret for them lies in using the engraved DOF markings on the focusing knob, and placing themselves at the proper distance from the subject to exercise creative control over DOF.

The "Snapshot Setting"

A great example of DOF in use on Minox 8 x 11 cameras is in using what has come to be known as the "snapshot setting." If you look on the camera body, just outside the focusing knob you see a small, curved line engraved with a small dot showing in the middle of the line. This is the DOF bracket and shows you the zone of sharp focus when you set focus at a particular distance with the focus knob by lining up the selected distance the small dot.

Between the 6-foot and Infinity setting (the number "8" laying on its side represents Infinity) on the focus knob is a red dot that indicates a distance of 12 feet. If you set the focus to 12 feet and examine the DOF bracket, you see that the arms of the bracket extend from 6 feet to Infinity. Your camera is now set to show everything from 6 feet to Infinity as being in sharp focus. This is called the "snapshot setting" because it makes for very quick and convenient photography, particularly in fast breaking situations when you haven't time to fiddle with focus.

To employ DOF creatively with the 8 x 11 cameras, use the DOF bracket to determine what your sharp focus zone will be. Now, move the zone of focus closer or further from your subject by physically moving yourself. As an example, set the focus on your camera to 6 feet distance so the depth of field will be 4 feet to 11 feet. If you're photographing a person and move in closer to where they are positioned 4 feet from the camera, the background (up to 11 feet behind the subject) will be in focus in the resulting photograph.

Conversely, if you move 11 feet away then they will be sharply focused in the photograph while everything in the background will be thrown out of focus.

You can create shallower zones of focus by setting closer distances on your camera, i.e., setting focus at 3 feet on the camera gives you a relatively narrow zone of focus beginning at 2 feet, 5 inches and extending to 3 feet 9 inches. Placing a subject within this zone will throw more of the foreground and background out of focus. Remember that closer focusing distances give shallower zones of sharp focus, while longer distances give deeper zones of sharp focus.

Depth of field, and thoughtful use of it when taking photographs, is a valuable creative tool that will do much to enhance the quality of your pictures. Explore it today!