DoF in sports photography

[Major_Small]

Don't forget that effective use of DoF takes distances into account. Your focal length, the distance from you to the subject, and the distance from the subject to the background, all have an effect on the final image. If you can get close to your subjects and keep the backgrounds as far away as possible, that could help you out.

[bispham_tangerine]

that was going to be my next question.
how much does zoom effect the dof?

also, i've just measured the distances at old trafford (place where the pic was took).
the distance from me in the stand to the umpire is approx 220 feet (im obviously zoomed in to that area of the pitch) and then from the umpire to the stand on the far side of the ground (which can be seen in the picture) is approx 260 feet.
i presume that 260 feet from subject to background is enough distance to get a shallow dof?

[inkista]

Actually, maybe not. It's your distance being so far away from the subject that sort of equalizes the distance between foreground/background. You might want to try playing with a DoF calculator. For example, for an S5700, at f/4, @60mm, focused on something 220 ft. away, your near limit is 160.3' and your far limit is 350.4', and you have a DoF of 190.1'.

Remember, too, that you're using exceedingly short focal lengths with a point-and-shoot. While the "35mm equivalent" is 38-380mm on your Fuji, the actual focal length of the lens is 6.3-63mm (it's written on the front of the lens)--another big factor in why your DoF is so huge with a P&S camera (y'know, aside from it being great marketing to have an easy-to-use camera that can't get things out of focus).

As for focal length and DoF, technically the DoF doesnt' change at all with focal length. But the amount of out-of-focus blur does. It's usually taught as "focal length changes your DoF" as shorthand, since that's the effect that occurs (i.e., the longer your focal length, the more OOF blur you get), but someone on Luminous Landscape debunked that.

[SJH Foto]

He is right, but your DOF will change with the focal length if you are shooting at your widest aperture because that changes as you zoom in-it gets narrower. That's why a lens might say 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 That means at 18mm, the widest aperture is f/3.5, but as you zoom in, you're only going to get f/5.6. Most lenses work that way, and I think all P&S cameras do too!

[inkista]

Yes, but a) there are also zoom lenses that have constant maximum apertures throughout the zoom range, (e.g., EF 24-105 f/4L IS USM, the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8, etc.), and b) if there's a "forced" stop-down the DoF is changing because of the different aperture, not the focal length--and that's only if you're shooting wide open. If, for example, you had your aperture set to f/11, the DoF would have remained constant.