Getting Shallow Depth of Field in Nature and Wildlife Video

Depth of field is defined simply the distance between the nearest and farthest object that is in acceptable focus in your shot.

Now with small chip cameras, getting deep depth of field is pretty easy. In fact, it’s a given. But what is a bit harder to achieve is what is called shallow depth of field.
With shallow depth of field, the distance between the closest and farthest object that are in focus in your frame is not very deep or “shallow”. The biggest reason why you would want shallow depth of field would be to isolate your subject from a distracting background and make it stand out on its own.

The video explains how to do three simple things to get the shallowest depth of field possible with your camera.

Now I should note that this technique works great out in the field but it would be extremely difficult to use in an office or other small room. So if your goal is to do a lot of talking head interviews and have a nice blurry background behind your subject, this probably won’t work for you. But for shooting nature and wildlife video it’s a great method to keep in your bag of tricks.

You can see this method used extensively in another tutorial on filming woodland wildflowers.

Leave a comment below if you’ve found this tutorial on obtaining shallow depth of field useful. Also, feel free to drop me an email if there’s a topic you’ve been curious about. Who knows, maybe it will be covered in the next tutorial!