Project 2: Focus with set aperture

The depth of field study. I thought this one would be easy but finding a good subject that would make an interesting photo was more of a challenge than I expected. Due to short daylight hours here in Edinburgh I decided to take some photos indoors. I chose a present I recently gave my husband, a bottle of nice whisky! I arranged it so that there would be some depth in the photo, and our curtains (not very interesting) behind it.

First Photo - focus on the box at the back of the photo. This is a strange looking photo because of the large objects out of focus in the foreground:

50mm, 1/15sec, f/2.8, 400 ISO, tripod, colour edit in GIMP

Second Photo - focus on the bottle itself. Much more balanced and a nice looking photo - this is the best one IMO and is the right focus for this composition:

50mm, 1/15sec, f/2.8, 400 ISO, tripod, colour edit in GIMP

Third Photo - focus on the detail at the foreground of the photo. Not bad but not as good as the second, the detail is interesting but not the point of the photo:

50mm, 1/15sec, f/2.8, 400 ISO, tripod, colour edit in GIMP

Overall this was an interesting exercise because it made me really analyse each of the different photos and think more about why I use DOF, instead of me just choosing an aperture and going for it!