Take a look at Murdo MacLeod’s photograph above of a sunbathing couple on Portobello beach, Edinburgh (above). He’s used a 24mm wide-angle lens, which has given him a helping hand with the depth of field, but he has still used a small aperture of f/13 to ensure that the bulk of the scene is in focus. Note that f/13 isn’t an option on the barrel of our old lens. This is because electronic digital cameras can set the lens iris to any size and are not governed by crude mechanical click-stops.

 

It’s very common in portraiture, almost a visual cliche these days, but more and more news photographers are shooting “wide-open” (with a wide-open aperture) to isolate the subject from a busy background. A shallow depth of field helps tone down “noisy” or distracting colours and shapes in the background.

 

 

Associated Press chief photographer Muhammed Muheisen uses this technique to draw your eye to the young Pakistani girl and her gun, despite the strong shapes of the man and bicycle (left). If you find this sort of shallow focus effect appealing, you could use the aperture priority mode on your camera to force it to use a wide setting; it will then automatically adjust the shutter speed to obtain the best exposure for the lighting conditions. But you might find you want to use a slow shutter speed as well, to introduce some movement, as in Muheisen’s second image, for example (reel pro video).

 

In this case you would have to make the camera less light-sensitive by changing the ISO rating to a lower value. This explains how the three settings are related.

 

Light

There is something arresting about Muheisen’s pictures, and it isn’t just his subjects: it’s the soft quality of the daylight. MacLeod’s couple on the beach in the scorching sunshine is great, but bright light is difficult to handle. Soft light at the beginning and end of the day often gives the best results. The sun is lower and more directional too, giving more modelling to your subjects.

 

It’s often best to “shoot against the light” or into the sun to avoid a flat, mundane result during the day. With so much light directed at the camera, you’ll want to set the exposure for the subject, so open the lens one or two stops (or use the exposure compensation settings on your camera).