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Seem to be having a senior moment. I've been doing static product shots with a Nikon D90 and I know that I can increase focal depth, that is to have the furthest part of the object in focus as well the nearest part, but I can't find out how.

I've played with aperture-priority auto and manual, slow shutter speeds, for instance slow shutter & small aperture but somehow I still get blurred background details, or sharp back and blurred front. All done on a tripod so no problem with wobblies.

Lack of brain cells aside, what am I missing?

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You are correct: a smaller aperture gives a larger depth of field (but it's not infinitely large! and obviously not as large as you'd like.)

Using a faster film/higher sensitivity and/or a lower shutter speed will allow you to use an even smaller aperture - but at the expense of added image noise and less sharp images, due to diffraction effects.

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Martin Everyone is entitled to my opinions.

Can you put more distance between camera and subject? I think depth of field is bigger at greater distance.

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Not unless I shoot outside! It's handbags this time, they have to be suspended by the handle and I can guarantee if I shoot outdoors the wind will swing them about. Or next door's cat.

I have tried increasing physical distance as much as possible, but while that helps a little I start to lose definition overall and get a blue cast. Got the feeling I'm not winning with this one. Might have to resort to the old ways, take two shots with different focus and stitch them together!

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Blessed are the censors; for they shall inhibit the earth.
"Some day Dragon Balls could power the world!"
5893 posts on MF, not that I'm keeping count or anything.

I think there's only high f number (small aperture), larger distance or zoom out that make the field of view deeper. If you can't get further away, how about more light on the subject to let you get the f up? (That isn't cussing there.)

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I'm never wrong, I'm just less right on occasions.

Thanks for the answers, in the end I got right up against the far wall and used the standard 'Mountain' setting. Works well enough for web pics of handbags so it'll do for now.

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Blessed are the censors; for they shall inhibit the earth.
"Some day Dragon Balls could power the world!"
5893 posts on MF, not that I'm keeping count or anything.

Focal depth and depth of field are two different things.

For focal depth, the lens focuses an image of the subject behind the lens onto the film. With a lens with good focal depth, this means that there is a tolerance for the placement of the film so that the image is still in focus. You could also think of it as focusing on your subject and then being able to move the camera backwards or forwards slightly and still have the subject in focus without having to adjust the camera.

Depth of field is as explained above.

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Perhaps you are trying for hyper focus which is the combination of a small iris and focusing approximately one third into the scene. This should make both the front of the scene in focus as well as infinity.

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Thanks all for the advice and link. After a read, I started to get a better result with everything on the lens turned to manual and the camera setting on macro instead of mountain, funnily enough - which in order to shoot bags in a small studio feels a little bit closer to what I needed to do.

Previously both the camera and lens were on auto (duh), which rather fuels the argument for clients to stop flustering around and rushing things, go away and leave one to it.

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Blessed are the censors; for they shall inhibit the earth.
"Some day Dragon Balls could power the world!"
5893 posts on MF, not that I'm keeping count or anything.

Back in the days of film cameras, fixed focal length lenses on SLR cameras had a scale showing the depth of field for the different aperture settings, as shown about halfway down this link. This made it very easy to see what would be in focus.
https://www.alanrossphotography.com/und ... -of-field/

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A wide angle lens will give a larger depth of field, but you may need to increase distance - camera to object and then increase image size on computer. Back in the film age I had a Canon with a 35mm lens which was sharp from about 3metres to infinity at stop f8. The standard lens 55mm gave no where near the same depth of field.

So with the D90 do you have a fixed focal length or a zoom, if a zoom then set to its shortest focal length the aperture to its smallest f8 or f11, and use meter to set exposure. Also set focus mid way not right at front of object but a little way in (measure with a tape) That way you will get the best possible sharp image.

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