Thanks, Gliff! It pays to observe your mirror closely while brushing your teeth or shaving your beard :).
Regarding keeping my image out of focus, it's simple optics. Viewing an image in a mirror makes us believe that the image was formed in the plane of the mirror itself, but that's not the case. A perfect mirror will form an image exactly the same distance behind itself as the subject is in front of it.
So shoot a mirror (keeping the plane of the mirror in focus like in this case) with a relatively large focal length and also, additionally (if possible) keeping yourself close to the mirror (I know, sounds counter-intuitive but the smaller the distance-to-subject is, the shallower DoF will be), and you'll throw your image in the mirror out-of-focus.
Regarding keeping yourself close to the mirror for shallow DoF, well, there is a limit obviously (w.r.t. keeping your image out-of-focus), and mostly it's determined by how close that particular lens can focus.
A little experimentation and you're there. In my case, I didn't even need to experiment. One look in the viewfinder and I knew I'd got it the way I wanted!
3 comments:
Amazing find. Lovely composition.
You have got a great narrow DOF. Despite shooting in a mirror, you've managed to keep yourself out of focus!
Thanks, Gliff! It pays to observe your mirror closely while brushing your teeth or shaving your beard :).
Regarding keeping my image out of focus, it's simple optics. Viewing an image in a mirror makes us believe that the image was formed in the plane of the mirror itself, but that's not the case. A perfect mirror will form an image exactly the same distance behind itself as the subject is in front of it.
So shoot a mirror (keeping the plane of the mirror in focus like in this case) with a relatively large focal length and also, additionally (if possible) keeping yourself close to the mirror (I know, sounds counter-intuitive but the smaller the distance-to-subject is, the shallower DoF will be), and you'll throw your image in the mirror out-of-focus.
Regarding keeping yourself close to the mirror for shallow DoF, well, there is a limit obviously (w.r.t. keeping your image out-of-focus), and mostly it's determined by how close that particular lens can focus.
A little experimentation and you're there. In my case, I didn't even need to experiment. One look in the viewfinder and I knew I'd got it the way I wanted!
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