P#27 Q4A: What Exactly Is Selective Focus?

Selective Focus Defined

Brenda Tharp: Selective focus is choosing a spot within the picture that you want sharp and then choosing an aperture (an f-stop) that will allow your subject to be sharp but let the background and maybe some foreground fall off into softness.

That's it in a nutshell. You're basically just selectively focusing your camera and deliberately choosing an aperture that will allow the shot to go soft in front of or behind the subject of your photo. That aperture tends to be a wider aperture -- meaning something like f5.6 or f5 or f2.8, and not the other end, which would be f16, f22.

It does depend on the situation. When you're doing macro photography and using selective focus, you might still be at f16 and barely getting your subject sharp because you have so little depth of field to work with.

It really is just about choosing the aperture that allows you to get your subject sharp and the background soft. It will vary according to the kind of thing you're working on -- whether it's an intermediate scene or a macro.

Audri Lanford: If you're a beginner, how can you take a picture that has the main subject in focus in the foreground with the background blurred?

Brenda Tharp: When you're looking through a lens, you're always looking through the lens wide open because that's just the nature of the way they design the mechanics on the camera. That allows us to see what we're doing. However, when the picture is made and that lens stops down, your depth of field, what's sharp and what's not sharp, is going to be much different.

An important thing to do, when you're trying to work with selective focus without shooting wide open on your lens, is always use your depth of field preview button to check the background or foreground and your subject to see what's going on.

For example, if I wanted to have an f8 aperture that gave my stalk of lupine blossoms sharpness but it kept the background soft, wide open even my stalk of flowers may not look totally sharp because there's a lot of depth to it.

But if I stop the lens down by doing the depth of field preview button, I will see that my flower stalk is now all sharp the way I want it and I can check the background and say, "Gee you know, that background's just a little bit too busy so I need to go a little bit wider open in my aperture so that the background becomes less distracting." However, I've got to check to make sure that if I go a little bit wider open in my aperture that I haven't lost the focus that I want on my flower.

I live and die by my depth of field preview when I'm out there in the field, whether it's macro or landscape work. Especially with anything that I'm working on for more expressive work, which is that selective focus idea.

There are some entry level digital cameras in the SLR range that may not have a depth of field preview button. I know some of the earlier ones, when they came out with them, didn't have it. It was very hard.

People would come to my workshops and I'd talk about this. Then they would look in their manual, and sure enough, they didn't have a depth of field preview button. I would be shocked, "How could a camera manufacturer not put one on?" For me, it's such an important tool to have on the camera.

I think more and more now they've recognized the need for it and they've put them back on. I think today, it would be less of an issue if someone were buying a camera, but it's certainly something worth looking for if you are buying. Make sure you get a camera that has that feature.

To Conclude

If you want the subject of your photograph sharp and in focus and the other elements of the frame soft and blurred, selective focus is what you're going for. What's the best way to make sure your selective focus is on the mark? According to Brenda Tharp, you need to get a camera with a depth of field preview button so you can see exactly what your selective focus is capturing.