Exercise 3: Focus at Different Apertures

This exercise is similar to the last in exploring how aperture affects focus.  I haven't yet been able to figure out the physics, but the result is this - the smaller the aperture (the larger the f-stop), the more clearly in focus will be objects at near and far depths.

I set out to demonstrate this yesterday evening in a walk around my neighborhood. I was planning to shoot a row of cars.  In fact I did shoot a row of cars.  But I also found something unusual that demonstrates the effect better than the car photos, bands of neon tubing wrapped around a column, which I shot with my body against the column, camera point up.

Exercise 2: Focus with a set aperture

Wherever we turn the attention of our eye we find objects in focus.   While you are looking at these words, try bringing your attention to things on either side of the screen.  You are aware of their presence, maybe their shapes and colors, but they are not in focus.  Now look at something across the room and notice that the things close to you fall out of focus.

In this respect, your camera functions much the same as your eye when set at low apertures.  It tends to focus on objects at one distance, but not more than one.  (At high apertures you can achieve with your camera something you cannot with your eye, focusing on everything within the frame.)  The object of this assignment is to demonstrate the camera's focusing ability, to note how to change the area of focus with a fixed aperture, and to investigate the relative area of focus.