Spring is coming and the flowers are starting to bloom, so I decided to start a search for some rapeseed fields. These yellow flowers are grown for the production of animal feed, vegetable oil and biodiesel. In these last years these cultivation are became quite common also here in the northern part of Italy. Due to photography these fields are good subjects because the homogeneus and thick yellow form. The approach of the day is get a car and travel a bit on the cultivaded area around here.
As you will see from the backstage video today we'll work on aperture and depth of field creating some landscapes wich will describe all the place and then some singular theme images where the focus will be intensified on some part of the image leaving the others to the viewer imagination.
On the first part of the backstage (0:00 - 2:15) I'm taking some descriptive images that, like the name implies, tells a story of the place. Landscape shooting calls most often upon the wide angle lenses such as 35mm, 28mm, 24mm and 20mm focal lengths. It someting happens that a storytelling composition need to be shoot with a moderate telephoto bause we need to exclude most of the place around the framing. The first field we met was quite small and encircled by some bush and trees with a small town in the background. Getting too close to the filend will be hide the belltower and the mountains on the background, so I took the first shoot with a tele lens a 70-200mm. By the way regardless of the lens choice, there is one constant: a quite small lens opening is the rule.
I talked about depth of field, but someone may say: "who cares what aperture I use when everything in my frame is at the same focusing distance?". That's in part true, we can use middle of the road apertures that usually are sharpest and offer the great contrast in exposure on most lenses. Both f8 and f11 are referred to middle of the road apertures, that rarely render all the visual information withing a great depth in sharp focus and they rarely isolate except when what you're framing is at the same folcald distance.
On the first serie of shoots in the backstag I was shooting some landscapes, after all everything was at the same focal distance (almost infinity) but critical aprtrures matter to have a sharp and constrasted picture.
Once into the fields (1:20) I found a nice tree in the middle of it. First shoot was the field and the tree together but the sky was not so spectacular so I tryed more closed shoots.
On the the third field location (2:20) the light in the sky was definitely shaded on gray and so I started working on some details of the landscape. To attract the viewer attention on a single part of the image you have to work on isolation by choosing the right aperture and focus.
On these kind of shoots sharpness is deliberately limited to a single area in the frame, leaving all the other objects out of focus tones and shapes. Since the telephoto lens has a narrow angle of view and an inherently shallow depth of field , it's often the lens choice for this types of photographic situations.
When you deliberately seek out to selective focus on one given subject, the blurry background and/or foreground can call further attention in the in focus subject. This is a standard visual law often referred to a visual weight: whatever is in focus is understood by the eye and brain to be of greatest importance.
Is there any tool on the camera that can help to determine the best aperture choice for singular themes compositions? Yes it's the depth of field preview button. The purpose of this button in simple: when the button is pressed, the lens stops down to whatever aperture you've selected, offering you a preview of the overall depth of field you can expect on your final image.
On the last part of the afternoon the sun, getting lower, stated to cast a better light and on the way back we stopped on a small hill with a tree on the top (4:20). The hill was stuffed with small yellow flowers (no rapeseed but dandelions). I mounted a wide angle lens and took the first shoot with the flowers starting on spots in the foreground and finally intensifing on the hill enhanced by the lonely tree. On the second shoot I choose a 70-200mm to get closer to the tree poiting on the yellow flower capet below it and the big clouds in the sky.
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Poppy field photography: behind the scenes - Week 58by PhotoGavin137,169 views
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