depth of field... rule of thumb?

Am i remmbering this correctly, as the camera moves away from the subject, should the DOF increase? ie shooting at 50mm 1.4, dof is greater at 10' vs 5'..

best thing to do is go to dofmaster.com and play with the online calculator.

But yes, as distance increases so does DOF, with DOF being largest when you are focused at infinity. On the other side when shooting at macro distances the DOF is extremely shallow.

Yep.

I happen to have some examples of just that. With 50mm at f/1.4

yeah, DoF increases if you're further away from the subject.

The closer u get to a subject, the more isolation u get

I like your three pics Pete - they also show that moving your feet will change the perspective.

In pic #1 the figurine looks to be about a quarter of the height of the fence in the background.
In pic #2 the figurine is about half the height of the fence, just because you moved closer.
In pic #3 the figurine is about as tall as the fence!

Grimes wrote in post #9203863
I like your three pics Pete - they also show that moving your feet will change the perspective.

In pic #1 the figurine looks to be about a quarter of the height of the fence in the background.
In pic #2 the figurine is about half the height of the fence, just because you moved closer.
In pic #3 the figurine is about as tall as the fence!

Yep. Many folks don't even realize that camera-to-subject distance changes perspective.

For the newbies reading this who are wondering about perspective control, please read our "sticky" tutorial titled Perspective Control in Images - Focal Length or Distance?.