Before you take a shot think about what you want to achieve with the picture. What is it that you want the focus to be on. Beginners might be puzzled by this question, but what I’m referring to is called depth of field, and it’s an essential element of photography.

To get the most out of this feature, you’ll want a digital camera that has a wide range of f-stops, at least from f/2.8 to f/11.

Setting your aperture setting to around f/2.8 you’ll get a very shallow depth of field, where, say, just the person you’re photographing is in focus and the background blurred.

But if you’re shooting a crowd and want everyone, from closest to farthest, to be in focus, you’ll want the smallest aperture, such as f/11, f/16, or f/22, depending on which camera you have. You’ll usually be able to get this feature only in compact, superzoom, or enthusiast cameras.

Equally, if you want to take a great landscape shot and have everything completely in focus you can try setting your aperture to around f/36 if you camera supports it.

I’ve made a little cheat sheet to help explain

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More on this next time …