This is a photo from our courtyard near the front door. The morning light made the cactus look like it was lit from inside.

I think my photography is improving thanks to an online photography class I’m taking through the local community college. I struggle with the concepts at the beginning of each week. Every Monday there is a new module online. I have to print it out, highlight and reread the material several times. I’m looking for clues for the weekly assignment which is due over the weekend. There’s also assigned reading from our textbook.

Instead of telling us what the assignment is, the professor says the instructions for photos can be found throughout the module.

This week’s topic is aperture, which are the “f stops.”

By putting the camera in Aperture priority, I can adjust the aperture (which is the hole in the lens) to let in more or less light. But the camera decides the shutter speed so the photo has the correct exposure. The module said to use this mode. Whew! I found one clue for my assignment. The instructions also said to use creativity with the depth of field. Plus I need to submit four photos.

What is depth of field?

Depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a photo that appear acceptably sharp. It is influenced by factors such as aperture, distance to the subject, and focal length of the lens.

In the photo above, I focused on my Bird Buddy feeder and the house finch. The bird is staring into one camera while being photographed by me. The background is blurred because the depth of field is shallow. The lower the f stop, the larger the aperture opens, letting more light into the camera. (Nothing confusing about that, right?) It makes the depth of field more narrow.

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to submit the same photo using different aperture settings or not. I’ve decided since this is technically an art class, I’m going for four different subjects using different f stops. I’ve got three so far. I will once again remind myself, “I’m doing this to learn, not for grades!”

I knew my pink flamingos would make it into a photo assignment. I used an f stop of 4.5 which is a low stop, which means the aperture opening is big. The shutter speed adjusted to 1/4000 of a second, which is really fast. That fast shutter speed made for crisp and clear flamingos and barrel cacti. The low f stop kept the foreground and background fuzzy.

Now to find one more photo! I took a ton of photos of my buddy Red. He hung out with me while I was photographing in our yard. Unfortunately, I didn’t think his photos turned out well enough to use for this week’s assignment.

The other day, I spotted Red with a girlfriend or wife. But she was only here for one day. Maybe she’s in their nest?

My buddy Red. He’s a little out of focus. I don’t think it was because of f stops or shutter speeds. He’s a flighty little thing. I think it was movement blur.

What’s your opinion on a shallow depth of field with a blurry background and crisp focused subject? Or do you prefer photos where everything is in focus?

Have you used the different settings on a camera in manual mode? Aperture priority or shutter priority?