Aperture - Part 1

Assignment: Find a scene with foreground, middle-ground and background. Set up the tripod, focus half-way into the scene, keep ISO relatively low. Set to aperture priority, cycle through aperture settings letting shutter speed fall where it may. Review differences in depth of field.

I used the table tripod set up outside, focusing on a skull decoration in a round-about outside the front of our house. It was midday and hot, but little man was happy to run around for a little bit! Also, the size ratio was set to 1:1 for a previous image and I forgot to change that... oh well... :)

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I started this activity with a scenery picture: a cactus at the horizon, a blue sky in the background and mostly dirt with some bushes at the foreground. Really, it did not lend itself well to the aperture changes. But this image was fun to look at the different depths of field. Honestly I think I like the aperture at about 5.6-ish for this image because of the cactus skeleton. I like seeing it mostly clear with the blurred tree, but also having the rocks slightly blurred as well. 

I've never actually sat back and looked at the different aperture settings before. I usually keep it at the lowest setting available for the lens length. I know at the longest focal length with the Samsung lens I can go 5.6 for the lowest aperture (I am unable to control the aperture with the Cannon lens.