A question about DoF

[spank]

I hope this is in the right section.

My question is...

" Is it possible to have a tight DoF on one particular part of the face leaving the rest out of focus or at least with a slight blur"

Does the face have to be angled in a certain way to achieve this and does anyone have examples that they could share.

[OsmosisStudios]

You could do it with a tilt-shift lens. They arent cheap, but you could rent one for a particular event if you need it.

[spank]

Thanks for answering my question. To be honest I have never heard of a tilt-shift lens and now I am off to google...

[Cuchulainn]

I don't know if this (not my photo, just a good sample) is the look you are going for, but if it is then a lensbaby is an easy solution. pBase has a gallery of a couple thousand lensbaby examples here. You can keep clicking "more" to cycle through them.

Lensbaby also has a gallery site here with more examples.

Originally Posted by spank

I hope this is in the right section.

My question is...

" Is it possible to have a tight DoF on one particular part of the face leaving the rest out of focus or at least with a slight blur"

Does the face have to be angled in a certain way to achieve this and does anyone have examples that they could share.

[Mr Guy]

Absolutely it's possible, and people do it all the time by accident!

Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, it's very possible to have such a narrow depth of field such that only the tip of the nose, the eyes, the cheekbone, or any other feature that's in a different plane as the rest of the face is in focus while anything else a slight distance away isn't.

Playing with a depth of field calculator will easily demonstrate that a very wide aperture taken from very close gives that effect easily: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

[inkista]

Originally Posted by spank

... Is it possible to have a tight DoF on one particular part of the face leaving the rest out of focus or at least with a slight blur?

Does the face have to be angled in a certain way to achieve this and does anyone have examples that they could share.

DoF, if you're not using a tilt-shift, depends on the subject distance from the lens, so as long as the parts of the face you want blurred are at a different distance from the camera as the part you want in focus, yes, you can achieve the one-eye-in-focus effect. You typically need a very wide aperture.

Not a people portrait but:



XT. EF 135mm f/2L USM. iso 800. f/2. 1/1600s.

The combination of the longer focal length (135mm), the fast aperture (f/2), and the closeness at which I was shooting the peacock combined to give me a very thin DoF.

With a tilt-shift, you can achieve a similar effect either with tilt or swing. The DoF shape will be horizontal with tilt, and vertical with swing. Here's an example of swing:


XT. Hartblei MC 80mm f/2.8 Super-Rotator. 8° swing to the left

[spank]

Originally Posted by Mr Guy

Absolutely it's possible, and people do it all the time by accident!

Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, it's very possible to have such a narrow depth of field such that only the tip of the nose, the eyes, the cheekbone, or any other feature that's in a different plane as the rest of the face is in focus while anything else a slight distance away isn't.

Playing with a depth of field calculator will easily demonstrate that a very wide aperture taken from very close gives that effect easily: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Thanks for all the responses, My Guy you didnt misunderstand. I am wanting to focus on the eyes or nose or cheek.

[OsmosisStudios]

In that case you can do it two ways: a very fast lens (read: smaller than f/1.4) or a tilt-shift lens set to both tilt and shift.

[Chip]

It helps to remember the general rule that the closer the camera to the subject, the narrower the DOF.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

In that case you can do it two ways: a very fast lens (read: smaller than f/1.4) or a tilt-shift lens set to both tilt and shift.

Err... a tilt-shift lens set to tilt or swing.

Shifting is very different from tilting, and has a very different effect--it doesn't change perceived DoF, but perspective. It can be used in combination with tilt/swing, but it's the tilt/swing that can manipulates the perceived DoF.

I also take this opportunity to add that tilt/swing is traditionally used in the other direction--to deepen the DoF, not make it shallower.