DoF difficulties for shooting books and toys

[Averis]

Last year I bought a DSLR Canon T1i. Besides still learning a lot about ISO, shutter, aperture and white balance, one problem I seem to hit a lot is controlling DoF.

I typically shoot in Av, with manual WB and ISO on a tripod. I currently have the kit lens.

The problem is that I have to shoot at close distances (a couple feet) and sometimes I want my DoF to be wide and other times shallow, but it seems no matter what aperture I use, it's always the same, shallow.

I mostly want to take pictures of things in my room, such as books, toys (I collect character statues) and such. So these are things that range in size from several inches to a foot or so.

Sometimes I want to get close and have the background really blurred like a macro shot. Other times I want to shoot many objects and have them all in focus. Since I'm shooting in my room I'm typically only a couple feet away.

It's fairly easy to get a shallow DoF. In fact it seems that's ALL I can get. When I want to focus on multiple objects, I can't, and that is my problem right now. Even if I set the aperture to 32, it's still shallow. This seems to be because I'm too close to my subject. But if I back up I can't compose the shot how I want.

From doing some reading it seems like I can't do it. Not with a DSLR, anyway. What I've read tells me that the large sensor of a DSLR is great for shallow DoF, but not so much for wider DoF unless you're far away from your subject.

What I want isn't completely macro photography, but it's not portraits either. So I don't know if I need a special lens or it's just the limit of a DSLR shooting in a small space and small-ish objects.

The more I read, it sounds like a P&S would be better for me since they have a smaller sensor and thus have a wider DoF, but then I'd loose the shallow DoF when I do in fact want it. I've been looking at the Lumix 5, which seem to be a bridge camera with good manual controls but a smaller sensor. It seems the closest option for shooting both small-ish objects and have the option for shallow and wide DoF.

So, I'm frustrated with this and can't find an answer since most sites talk about either macro, portrait or landscape, but what about objects a foot big? How do you shoot those with a wide DoF without being far away?

Any advice would be great! Thanks!

[inkista]

You might want to google focus stacking and tilt-shift lenses. And P&S cameras will also give you shallower DoF, the closer you get to the subject. This is the nature of macro photography.


Canon Powershot S90, @22.5mm (105mm equiv.) iso 320, f/8, 1/250s.

[Doug Pardee]

To clarify a point: it's not a matter of being "farther away from your subject," but rather the size of the subject relative to the size of the sensor — the magnification. As inkista noted, shallow depth-of-field is an unavoidable consequence of photographing small objects. That's true whether you do it up close, or do it from a distance with a longer focal length (to fill the frame).

[Doug Sundseth]

The thing to remember is that shorter absolute (not equivalent) focal lengths and larger sensors give deeper DoF for a given subject distance. P&S cameras tend to have very short focal lengths across their full zoom range, so even though they have small sensors their working DoFs are often good at short distances.

I'd recommend that you take a look at Online Depth of Field Calculator for a very good depth of field calculator.

[Averis]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. As interesting as a tilt-shift lens is, it's a bit out of my price range. I guess I could play with focus stacking, but seems complex.

So besides those solutions seems this is the "nature of the beast". Hmm... So even a P&S like the LX5 won't do any better. Guess, I'll just have to get used to it.

Thanks again for the help. Least I know it's not totally my lack of skill.