Your Assignment Is

"Your Assignment Is..." Photo Challenge

Now that the 365/52 Photo Challenge has ended, the Rockbridge Camera Club is starting a new challenge "Your Assignment is...", for 2022. Each month we will assign a photographic technique, and you may submit images taken using that technique.

Click here for description of the challenge and instructions on submitting your photos.

Click on the box below for the description of this month's assignment.

Click on any image to go to larger images and the photographers' full descriptions.

August Assignment: Shooting a Silhouette

July Submittals: Depth of Field

Bob Kovach - Narrow Depth of Field

This flower photo was taken just after a rain. I focused midway into the flowers to get the subject only in focus.

1/200 sec, f/5.6, 80mm, Olympus mirrorless camera.

Bob Kovach - Wide Depth of Field

This was an attempt to capture both the foreground and background in focus. I closed down the aperture and focused just beyond the brick wall.

1/160 sec, f/8, 28mm, Olympus mirrorless camera.

Bob Kovach - Stacked Photos

To get all of the orchids in focus, I used a focus stack of 8 images, which were processed in Photoshop.

1/100 sec, f/8, 85mm, with a Nikon D850.

Chuck Almarez - Roaring Run Focus

Focused on the foreground, with the background out of focus.

1/6 sec, f/4, 17mm on Canon 5D Mark III

Chuck Almarez - Roaring Run Focus Stack

Final Focus Stack of 8 images. Focus stacking worked great. Not sure I needed quite so many images, but at f/4 it was a trade-off between capturing enough DoF and having too long an exposure for the water flow. And this is a good example of when to resort to focus stacking: when you need/want lots of DoF but can’t sacrifice the motion in the image with a long exposure.

1/6 sec, f/4, 17mm on Canon 5D Mark III

Chuck Almarez - Deep Depth of Field

It’s hard to beat the DoF captured by camera phones since they’re specifically designed to keep everything in the scene in sharp focus. I was passing by the C&O rail yard on the night of the full moon and only had my iPhone. Great exposures in low light and very forgiving with long handheld exposures. This had plenty of DoF with the actual focal length of 5.7mm which equated to 26mm on a full-frame camera.

0.5 sec, f/1.5, ISO 1250, 26mm equivalent, iPhone 13 Pro

Chuck Almarez - Another Way of Increasing DOF

I especially liked this shot because of the out of focus background being brought back into focus in the water drops.

1/200, f/2.8, 100mm Macro on Canon

Deborah Pugh - Purple Daylily

Focus stacking continues to defy my full control; however, I wanted to try it, particularly with a flower. Capturing a whole flower or insect using the macro lens is very difficult because the depth of field is so small. The daylily still is not tack sharp, even though I stacked at least eight photographs. I found the process so laborious, especially since I had to do this with a tripod. I use my tripod quite a bit but you could not do focus stacking for images of moving objects, particularly moving insects. Even capturing the daylily was a challenge because the breeze moved it only slightly. I used my Affinity Photo to focus stack and just haven’t figured out how to “tune up” the layers so ghosts disappear.

Canon 5D Mark III, 1/250, f2.8, ISO 200, 100mm macro.

Deborah Pugh - Woman Looking Across the Bridge

In this image, I bumped up my f stop to create a deep depth of field. There was no need for focus stacking. Hooray!

Canon 5D Mark III, 1/60, f20, ISO 500, 70mm.

Deborah Pugh - Clothes Washed in the Creek

As I was walking through Landes Park, I noticed two shirts spread out by the bridge. Apparently, someone had washed their clothes and spread them out carefully to dry. For this image, I wanted some ethereal blurring but not a complete bokeh, while keeping the clothing is sharp focus in the foreground.

Canon 5D Mark III, 1/2500, f2.8, ISO 400, 27mm.

Eben Ostby - Depth of Field 1

This month I’ve used three different cameras for the assignment.

This is a Kodak Signet 30 that someone gave me. It’s got 44mm f2.8 lens. The way to get a lot of separation between the foreground and background, in this case, was to use a close-up lens of +4 diopters. This lets you focus several inches away from the camera and throws the background way out of focus.

Eben Ostby - Depth of Field 2

This is taken with a 4x5 large format camera. These wineberries were along Plank Rd. With the large negative on this camera, an image that is taken somewhat stopped down still shows pretty critical focus, with the background - only a little way away from the berries - quite blurry. By the way, the reason why those bright red wineberries look black here is because the film is orthographic, i.e., red-blind.

Eben Ostby - Depth of Field 3

This is taken with a Kodak “Bantam RF”, a camera that took the now-extinct 828 roll film. To take this picture, I taped microfilm to the 828 backing paper. For pictorial use, microfilm is very sharp but also very slow film (ISO 25), necessitating opening the Bantam’s lens to its full awesome f-stop of 3.9. That, plus focusing as close as it would go (3 feet) gives you some depth.

Lad Sessions - Vines in Glen Maury Park

Vines in Glen Maury Park. Here the focus is very narrow, on the central vines, accomplished by the longer focal length. Sony A7III, 52mm, 1/30@f/7.1, EV -0.70, ISO 6400.

Lad Sessions - Lavender Bush

Lavender bush. Here depth is accomplished by a wide angle lens and smaller aperture.

Sony A7III, 16mm, 1/4@f/11, EV -0.70, ISO 6400.

Lad Sessions - Dead Trees on Brushy Hills

Dead trees on Brushy Hills. I focused on the nearest part, with depth provided by the blurring along the logs.

Sony A7III, 16mm 1/30@f/4, EV -0.30, ISO 3200.

Michael Smith - Scarlet Beebalm Trio

'Scarlet Beebalm Trio' was taken on the nature trail starting at the McCormick Mill building. The image has three flowers at different focal lengths and was taken with a Canon 80D and 75 to 300 zoom at settings of F5 and a 1000th of a second.

Michael Smith - Woodear Fungi

The 'Woodear Fungi' was taken of a tree that snapped recently and the upper portion was suspended. This scene was found on the Lexi trail. The image focus fades as the eye follow the trunk into the distance. The image was taken with a Canon 80D and Sigma 28 to 70 zoom. The settings used for the image were F4 and 1/640 shutter speed.

Ted Burrowes - Holding Hands

Taken in a California vineyard with my iPhone 13, this image of two different grape vines reaching “across the aisle” brings me a smile. Having the context of the vineyard in the background adds context that enhances the image, while its being out of focus keeps it in an appropriately secondary role visually.

Ted Burrowes - Weill Hall

This music performance space at Sonoma State University provides a dramatic vista of wood, not only in color but in the textures of the railings and seats. Having a full depth of field is essential to highlight the drama of these elements and my iPhone 13 did a good job of providing that.

Ted Burrowes - Audience Seats

Also taken in Weill Hall, the depth of field here is more mixed, with the foreground in focus and the image blurring gradually into the distance. I like that in the foreground, where the woodwork is most “spread out”, the sharp focus celebrates the woodwork patterns, and that the gradual blurring provides a sense of the expanse without demanding attention where the detail would be less evident anyway. Again, the iPhone 13 let me get what I wanted.