Close up focus and DOF question.

I had just come back from a walk in the desert when this Female Costa Hummingbird landed on our on back porch hummer feeder about 4 feet away from me. The hummer took a drink from the feeder and just sat there looking at me, so I slowly raised my camera and took several pictures and went inside. Several weeks later I was going through my images and came across this one and realized that it was probably one of the closest pictures I have of a bird. However looking at this image raised some questions for me in taking pictures of birds close up. This does not happen very often for me but I was wondering what one could do to get the entire bird in focus this close? Is DOF always the answer, should I have gone for more DOF with a higher f stop (f16 or more)? Or are their other considerations?
Thanks for any feedback on this.
Regards,
Jim

My specs are:
Nikon D300s
Nikkor 300 f4, 1.4 TC
1/125 sec, f8, iso 400
Focus mode - Continuous servo
AF area mode - Dynamic area AF 51 points
Metering mode - matrix
Aperture priority
Focus distance - 1.5 meters
Full frame image

You've bumped into the dilemma of close ups - depth of field gets very narrow at higher image magnifications. That's one reason you'll see true macro lenses with apertures as small as f/32. But even that doesn't add much DOF when you are really close.

Stopping down to such small apertures means less light reaches the sensor, so flash is often necessary.

A couple of technical points:

- does your 300/4 really focus to only 4 feet? Excellent if that is true.

- "higher" isn't the correct term for aperture. Recall that the f-number is a ratio: f/16. That's because it designates that the diameter of the lens opening (the aperture) is 1/16th of the Focal length of the lens. So, a "bigger" number is really a smaller number because its a fraction, and it is properly called a smaller aperture.

Regarding the close-focusing of the 300/4 AF-S, it will focus closer than normal when coupled with a teleconverter. It's very handy when you're out shooting birds and other wildlife, and then a California newt shows up. It's practically a macro lens with a 1.7X on it.

John - As you raise the f-number, you'll get more DOF, but you'll also get more diffraction effects. It's up to you to decide what's more important - I'd think in most cases I come down on the side of getting more DOF. But diffraction effects will add a bit of blur overall to the photo. It might be worth taking a little model and making a bunch of photos at different apertures to try to learn what you prefer. Something like a little stuffed animal works well, since the fur will be highly detailed.

Some people suggest avoiding diffraction vehemently, but plenty of folks get really good results going to those tiny apertures.

Rich,
I guess I just have never thought about the dilemma of close ups before and as to why close up images are never in full focus until this hummer shot. I have been very content with my close-focusing of the Nikkor 300 f4 and 1.4 TC in photographing dragonflys. In reviewing the lens specs it states a minimum focus distance of 4.8ft.
David,
That is a good idea about trying out the different apertures on a small stuffed toy animal and seeing what I would prefer. I will have to try that.

Thank you for your replies, interesting stuff.

Regarding the close-focusing of the 300/4 AF-S, it will focus closer than normal when coupled with a teleconverter. It's very handy when you're out shooting birds and other wildlife, and then a California newt shows up. It's practically a macro lens with a 1.7X on it.

Not true - a teleconverter has no effect on close focus. But, obviously, you get more magnification (1.4x, 1.7x, 2x depending on the converter) for a given distance.

Hi Jim, In response to your question here are a couple of things to consider; 1) I would increase your F-stop to 11 or 13, this is going to require you to increase your ISO accordingly due to the fact that when photographing small birds any shutter speed under 1/90th (assuming your using a tripod) will diminish your chances of keeping the image tack sharp due to bird movement. The trade-off to the higher ISO and increased aperture will potentially be a little noise and more detail in your B/G. One other point consider going from 51 points to 21. John

Jim, you can google various "depth of field calculators" on the web, where you input sensor size, focal length, aperture and subject distance, and it will calculate how much DOF you have. The bottom line is that with a combination of long focal length and short subject distance, DOF becomes razor thin, even with narrower apertures

Brian beat me to the punch. According to one online DOF calculator (http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html) your camera and 420mm focal length with the subject at 5 feet, your DOF is a miniscule 1/4 inch at f/16. If you backed off to 7 feet you can squeeze about 1/2 inch of DOF, which might suffice for a hummer. The popular 105mm macro lens would have a whopping 4.9 inches.

Very interesting discussion and good to take mental notes, so I'm ready when bugs and blossoms emerge this spring.

By the way, excellent photo!

I've shot my 100mm macro all the way down to f/32 and I'll take the greater depth of field over the small sharpness loss to diffraction every time.

I am going to bookmark that DOF website, good information to know for the next close up or testing scenario's.
Thanks to all the above for some good and helpful information.
Jim

Jeff,

Thanks for the link!! I learned so much by simply playing with the calculator for a few minutes.