Still Life-Large Format

So far we have had two workshops working with a Large Format camera. Our first workshop was about Depth of field, we learnt that 'Depth of field is the distance in front of and beyond the point of focus that the subject appears to be in focus'. We also learnt the difference between a shallow depth of field and a large depth of field. A shallow depth of field is when there is a critical point of foucs which means the main part of the photo is in focus and beyond the subject everything is soft. To get a shallow depth of field you have to use a large aperture such as F8. 

A large aperture is when everything in your image is in focus. This is ideal for landscape photography. If you want to use a large depth of field you have to use a small aperture such as F32.

Our task for this workshop was to photograph two candles in a studio. We had to use the same shutter speed, camera angle, and composition but just change the aperture for each image. For the first image we had to use a small aperture to get both of the candles in focus, we then had to use a large aperture for the second photo so only the first candle was in focus and the rest was soft.

The second work shop was about Focal length and perspective. We learnt that “The focal length of a lens is defined as the distance in mm from the optical centre of the lens to the focal point, which is located on the sensor or film if the subject (at infinity) is ‘in focus’’’. Focal length is the distance between the camera lens and the camera sensor, and “ increasing the focal length, whilst keeping the same lens- to-subject distance increases the magnification but decreases the angle of view’. The large format camera was explained to us so we know all the camera controls and how to change the focal length and sharpness. Our task was too take two images, of a still life, using two different lenses with different focal lengths but we had to make them look exactly the same. For our first image we used a 180mm lens, we then changed to a 240mm lens. We had to change the camera angle and the composition of the camera to get it to the same composition as the first one because we increased the focal length which increases the magnification.