Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Agreed.. but it is not being a macro lens that gives it shallow depth of field--it is being close to the subject that does this. A normal lens mounted backwards will have the same issue. Aperture and magnification (distance and focal length, and degree of enlargement) control DOF...

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

If you are shooting with a FF at f16 and f22, you are into diffraction which will start lessening the sharpness. With FF, using a wider angle of view would give more DOF. But moving in for the same framing would change the perspective. This is where you would want to use a smaller sensor, but then that requires carrying more camera equipment. Stacking is the best way to go in this case, but that will not work if there is lots of movement. Pick what you think is going to work best for the situation. Sometimes we have to live with less than perfect.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

People have lost all respect for waiting around. I once knew a photographer who would set up his camera, sit on his folding chair, and wait 2 or 3 days (or more) for the light he wanted. Then he shot the cover of a corporation's annual report.

A wide angle lens makes everything smaller, so you can't make out the out-of-focus part as clearly--but all lenses have only one plane of sharpest focus, and the same DOF at the same settings when magnified...

What is FF?

User ID

Remind me not to buy shares in that corporation which pays someone to sit around in a chair a few days watching shadows moving along in their entirely predictable path. And also identify this photographer so I don’t hire someone that sits around for days. Such stories aren’t highly creditable endorsements.

Go sit in a chair for a few days and, sooner or later, someone will come by and explain all about “FF”. Trust me on that. You gotta have some respect for waiting around ;-)

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

I don't recall the photographer's name--it was over 30 years ago in the heyday of view cameras. I did not meet him, but he did photographs for a friend of mine at Griffin Associates Landscape Architects for a portfolio of their commercial landscape work. My friend was the owner, Larry Griffin. It was my impression that the photographer was independent--not corporate. But you are right that corporations seem to focus on immediate goals.

As I recall, Larry actually was impressed by the photographic results and he seemed to be mystified by the methods. In those days there was no PhotoShop, so if you wanted a certain weather and cloud effect you had to wait for it, like Howard Hughes in the movie "Aviator"--losing a fortune waiting for clouds in his movie, "Hell's Angels."

For FF I think of Fast Forward--perhaps fine-focus? A bit redundant, perhaps...

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

Were you stationary or using a tripod?
If stationary and or tripod, lower the shutter speed, raise the F stop to 14 or 16.
Then chimp in between. The key is to get the f stop high enough.
If motion blur becomes an issue, raise iso to give yourself more movement.

mundy-F2 Loc: Chicago suburban area

OK, you can ask the bears to pose for the shot, and I will take the shot from a good distance. I was in Churchill, Canada on Hudson Bay and was able to get some close-ups of polar bears. That is the last time I am getting close to bears. I want to add that all bears are very quick on their feet, but the truck I rented was faster.
Mundy

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Tell us why the picture of your monitor? The first image that started this thread looked like Lightroom on the computer monitor. Why not export an image and attach that JPEG? Some picture is better than no picture, but an image attached and stored for inspection is a better approach.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

FF = full frame. If I shoot a wide angle lens and a telephoto from the same spot, perspective does not change. The wide angle, like you stated, just changes the size. To get a change in DOF, one must change the position such the the subject is the same size in the viewfinder. This is only possible if the animal is approachable. And just like you mentioned, time can sometimes be the essence of a successful and unique photo. Unfortunately, not all of us have the ability to obtain the amount of time required for a particular or perceived photograph.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

FF is the abbreviation that most of the photography industry is using to describe the 35mm format. That includes people like the camera manufacturers, many professionals and those working in the commercial side of photography. The fact that it had a different meaning once upon a time is gradually becoming irrelevant.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

When I first got digital I set the ISO to 100 and left it there--willing to use a tripod, as I was accustomed to do with 100 or 125 ASA film (my favorite). Only recently I have resorted to higher ISO, with results I could not have gotten otherwise (deer in the yard at dusk, not for long). That is a good tool, and as you say, it could apply here with the bears, though a tripod is preferable, and higher f-stop.

But often here I see people advising high ISO as the solution when it is not necessary--and of course that can lead to noise in the picture. In fact, given a choice between ISO noise or high-aperture diffraction, it is 6-one, half a dozen the other, yes? People who squawk about diffraction at f11 or f16 (or higher) seem unmoved by noise, which is another form of unsharpness. I suspect that fear of diffraction is the real driver behind the trend to make everything fuzzy but the subject--which is only a partial success at sharpness; but it could be the reverse. The desire to make much of the image unsharp could be driving people to bigger apertures.

Does the subject stand out better, while the background becomes less noticeable, when large apertures are used? Yes and no: out-of-focus background can be more of a distraction than a sharp one. In the whole history of art, where artists could make everything sharp or not, hardly anybody ever deliberately blurred the background, though they might downplay it in other ways (brightness, contrast, color). Maybe Monet painted unsharp because he was near-sighted, rather than a lover of bokeh, but still... In photography we have learned to see pictures for what is possible--sports action will have out of focus backgrounds, landscapes preferably not, etc. But noise in enlargements is never desirable to me.

Mongo Loc: Western New York

Without doing some research on what consumer photo tool, I cannot tell you exactly how to accomplish what I think you want, however this is a frame stacking class problem.

The implementation you need is a focus stacking one, which takes a stack of different focus points, and then optimizes for sharpness through the focus range of the stack.

This is commonly done for stills, and has been implemented at several motion picture facilities for control over enhanced DOF.

Using the same technique, you could make both bears sharp and the grass soft. Several frames would be necessary with the bears in focus, and the grass would remain out of focus. However, without segmentation of the image, other objects (including grass), which remained in the plane of focus of the bears would also be sharp. But that is usually manageable with manual or automated segmentation of the image.

Dynamics5

New technique to learn.
When does hyperfocal distance work? Have not had much success with it.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

It depends on what you don't need in focus. If you move the focus in front of the subject, and leave enough still behind the subject, you can get more foreground In focus in front of the subject without the subject appearing out of focus. I have used this technique when I need more in focus in front of the subject and occasionally for when I want more in focus behind the subject. For the sharpest focus of the subject, focus should be on the subject. But DOF can be played with to provide more focus in front or back of the subject while keeping the subject still relatively in focus.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

The easiest way to use that technique is to note where the foreground starts to appear out of focus. Aiming at point just under half the distance between the subject and where it starts to appear out of focus will put the actual focus in front of the subject but make more of the foreground In focus. Although the subject will not have the ultimate sharpness, from a proper print viewing distance no one will ever know. The technique is very similar for stretching what is in focus behind the subject. One just has to remember that approximately 1/3 the DOF is in front of the subject and approximately 2/3 is behind the subject. Therefore one cannot move the focus point that far behind the subject without putting the subject out of focus. Using the same distance you would pull the focus in front of the subject for pushing the focus behind the subject would be the safest at preserving the overall DOF.