Depth of field distribution

Saturday 30 May 2020, 14:07 by Michelle Peeters | 5,997 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Take this rule of thumb with a large pinch of salt. It says that one third of the depth of field lies in front of the point of focus and two thirds behind it. This distribution depends heavily on the focusing distance.

The ratio is fifty-fifty in macro photography, for example, because you focus from very close up. The sharp area in front of the point of focus is therefore just as large as the area behind it.

With extreme wide-angle lenses, the depth of field in front is minimal compared to the area behind it
But extreme wide-angle lenses can make things different again. Situations are possible where only a very small part, just a few per cent, of the depth of field lies in front of the point of focus. The rest is behind it.

But if you leave these two extreme situations out of consideration, you can indeed say that roughly one third of the depth of field lies in front of the point of focus and two thirds behind it.

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