Editing Photos

SarahAbigail

I recently got the canon T2i as a gift. When I opened the box I saw one of the booklets with a picture of a cheetah or leopard saying that there is a way to remove the bars from pictures of animals at the zoo. Well I accidently lost the booklet, and I am wondering if anyone could help me out by telling me how to do it? Thanks in advance.

PBked

Hi there,
The answer lies in depth of field. Many of the posts on this forum are concerned with depth of field behind a subject, but in this case you need to think of depth of field in front of the subject.
You may have heard the expression "focus a third of the way in". Think of a rectangle divided into three parts with vertical lines X and Y and see this as your total depth of field. If your subject is placed on line X and you focus on it, then you are "focussing a third of the way in".
Now for your question, to achieve the depth of field you need to choose a suitable aperture (so you will be working in AV mode) not too small and not too wide; somewhere between f/3.5 and f/5.6 usually does the trick. Next move close to the bars and set your center focus point only, if you leave it on automatic selection then some will try to lock onto the bars and the camera will tell you it cannot autofocus and will not allow you to take a picture.
Although you will not be able to see the bars in your picture, you will be able to see where they block some of the animal so you need to do a little touching up with a clone tool in your software. Please note that this only works for animals that are not moving. If you are trying to photograph a bunch of chimpanzees swinging round their enclosure, then you are talking a whole different ball game!
Good luck,
PBked