1/2000 Second: Shutter Speed and Depth of Field at the St. Louis Zoo

1/2000 Second: Shutter Speed and Depth of Field at the St. Louis Zoo, a photo by TheLouisianaJackhammer on Flickr.

A note for the photographer--several of the early images I'm posting were taken in the effort to achieve the fastest possible shutter speed. What's the use of having an f/1.8 if you don't have the “sharpest” image possible, right? I shot at very wide apertures and, for the most part, at ISO 800. I made a lot of mistakes doing this, but gained a greater understand and appreciation for depth of field. Its not really worth having an extremely fast shutter speed if you only have a tiny sliver of focus.

Not to be one of those people who complains about digital and asserts that film is superior, but digital lenses don't typically come with depth of field and focus scales like manual lenses usually do. A scale like this would come in handy, not just guessing at depth of field, but intentionally selecting an aperture to get what you want in focus. I suppose they just expect you to trial and error different apertures until you get the depth of field you want.

1/2000s at f/2.0 ISO 800