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-EXPOSURE-continued---------------
Depth
of
Field
When
you
shoot at a certain aperture and focusing distance,
you
will find that not only the main subject but objects
in
a cer-
tain distance range
in
front of
and
behind it will
be
sharp
in
the
final photograph. Objects beyond this range become increas-
ingly out of focus. This "in-focus zone"
is
known as depth of
field. When this zone of sharpness
is
large, the depth of field
is
said to
be
deep; when it
is
small, the depth of field
is
said to
be
shallow.
The
following
is
true of depth of field:
1)
The
smaller the shooting aperture (i.e. the larger the numeri-
cal f-number), the deeper the depth of field ;
the
larger the
aperture, the shallower the depth of field.
2)
The
farther away the subject
is
from the lens, the deeper the'
depth of field becomes; the closer to the lens, the shallower
the depth of field.
36
3)
The
longer the focal length of a lens, the shallower the depth
of field at each f/stop; the shorter the focal length, the deeper
the depth of field.
4)
There
is
greater depth of field behind the main subject than
in
front of
it.
The
depth of field at each aperture
is
indicated
on
the lens by a
set of color-coded lines
® (corresponding to the colors of the
f-numbers
on
the aperture ring) which are used
in
conjunction
with the distance scale
@ .
The
range
is
indicated
by
the dis-
tance between the lines.
Note: Certain Zoom-Nikkor and special-purpose Nikkor lenses do not
have
a depth-of-field scale.