Questions from SLR newbie

You've never had to resort to SuperGlue, huh?

You don't need the Canon variety. The ordinary stuff is fine.

Bees hate the smell.

---Bob Gross---

"You are typically holding the lens at wide open aperture to narrow the depth of field. "

Please correct me if I am wrong.. I am trying to take all of this in. Is the depth of field determine where focussed objects in a picture stop and it gets blurry? For example a wide depth of field only keeps very close objects in focus, while a small depth of field keeps far objects sharp?

Every lens and every lens aperture will have different depth of field characteristics. When using the same lens, a wide open aperture might leave everything in focus from 45 feet to 50 feet, and a narrowed down aperture might leave everything in focus from 15 feet to 200 feet. On one day, you are trying to get one effect, and the next day, you are trying to get the different effect. If you shift over to a much longer focal length, then those distances will get thrown out and a different set of distances will come in.

So, if you ask a beginner photographer this question:
"What does the lens aperture do?" ... He'll probably answer that it varies the amount of light coming through the lens to make the exposure right for that shutter speed. And that is true.

If you ask the experienced photographer the same question, you'll get a different true answer.
He'll answer that the aperture allows him to control the depth of field.

Both answers are true, but it just depends on your perspective.

I was shooting a hawk the other day, and I ended up with an unusual situation where the depth of field went from (calculated) 99.3 feet to 100.7 feet. As soon as the hawk raised one wing, it was out of focus.

---Bob Gross---

Ok, that makes much more sense now.

If you take a photography class sometime, that is the sort of stuff that they will beat into you for the first session or two.

People with a moderately technical brain will grasp the concept and practice until they can use it. Others will simply try to memorize some rule, and they don't master it, and their photography will stay odd.

---Bob Gross---