From the course: Learning Photography: Autofocus

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Depth of field preview

Depth of field preview

From the course: Learning Photography: Autofocus

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Depth of field preview

- As you're adjusting your camera settings related to focus and depth of field it can be very helpful to see an actual preview of what that depth of field looks like in the scene before you. It might surprise you to know that when you are looking through the viewfinder on a digital SLR by default you're only seeing the scene with the lens aperture wide open. In other words, what you're seeing represents the minimum depth of field for the scene. As you stop down the lens nothing changes in terms of depth of field unless you make use of the depth of field preview. When you're using the depth of field preview feature on your digital SLR the aperture will actually stop down to the setting you've established. That means less light is coming through the lens and that can make it rather difficult to see what's going on in that scene through your viewfinder. So whenever I'm using depth of field preview my preference is to use the live view display on the back of the camera rather than looking…

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