A tale of two rosemary pictures

I'm still working on understanding apertures. Here's a nice visual. I focused on the closest rosemary sprig for both of these pictures.

In the first one, the aperture is 10 which is about as small of an opening as I could manage without noticeable camera shake under the conditions. In this picture, the tall sprig behind the first one is also in focus and the ones behind that are recognizable as rosemary. Smaller apertures are appropriate for landscapes when there is lots of light available and you want everything in focus.

In the second photo, the aperture is 5, a larger opening that allows in more light but creates a narrower depth of field -- less of the picture is in focus. So, now the tall sprig is out of focus and the sprigs behind are ghosts. Wider apertures are appropriate for flowers when you want leaves and ground to blend into the background highlighting the flower itself.

This plant is our barbecue rosemary. The sprigs grow tall and straight and are supposed to make nice kabob sticks for the grill. So far, we've used it for it's tasty herb flavor. Rosemary is not a perennial around here although there are some newer varieties that can survive at least most Missouri winters. We experimented with one of those varieties but we think we lost them -- those plants are looking pretty brown. The rosemary in our bay window is doing fine.