Exercise 2 - Focus With a Set Aperture

I took these images in York, using the bicycle stands and river embankment. There are two sets of images in this exercise. The first is of cycles secured to the embankment railings. The camera was mounted on a tripod with the Sigma 150 mm macro lens set at f/2.8 for minimum depth of field. The camera was set to aperture priority, allowing the shutter speed to be controlled for the calculated exposure. The focusing mode was set to manual. Focusing on three different points, working from nearest to furthest produced these images:

 The first image highlights the rear mudguard and gear wheels, with the remainder of the image out of focus.

The second shows the front wheel of the second cycle, with the areas in front and behind out of focus.

The third concentrates on the rear wheel of the second cycle, while the rest of the image is thrown out of focus.

The second set of images was taken on the embankment with a cycle park and a row of trees along the edge of the river. The camera and lens were set up as in the previous example.

The images were taken in a similar manner to those in the previous set, with the focusing point working from front to back. In this case the second image focused on the walker looking across the river.

The area of focus is obviously the cycle stand.

The walker is the point of focus here.

Here the focus is moved to the end of the path 

I prefer the second image in both these sets. In both cases there is a feeling that the focused item has been selected to highlight a specific point – the first set concentrates on the front of the second cycle and the second set obviously separates the walker from the rest of his surroundings – I think this is my best effort in this exercise. 

 

This exercise shows the advantages of focusing on specific areas while considering the aperture being used. A smaller aperture will give less separation of the selected points as the depth of field increases. This will be shown in the next exercise.