Background blur

[Avalonthas]

I have noticed that alot of you good photographers take pictures , and especially when it comes to things as people or flowers or something, the background is blurred so that the object u are capturing comes out vibrant and you automatically focus on it once u look at a photo. Is this a function done on the actual camera or do you do these things by editing the photograph after on photoshop or something. Cuz i wanna make some nice shots like that but i dont know wether its a camera thing or editing thing. Thanks

[KevC]

Low f/stop :)

[IndyJeff]

It's called shooting wide open. If you don't have a lens which has an apt of at least a 2.8 it can be done but is more difficult.

[kawter2]

the DOF is the "Depth of Field" basically how much distance from the camera will be in focus, You want a SMALL dof to get the blur you speak of. Two things. the lower the fstop but also keep in mind, the closer to the focal point as well

[pcasciola]

If you're using the Powershot Pro 1, you have Av mode which is the easiest way to accomplish this. Put your camera in Av mode and go to the lowest aperture number you can, the camera will adjust the shutter speed for you automatically, and you will be shooting "wide open", meaning you are allowing the most amount of iight in that your lens will allow. Increasing the apeture number (stopping down) will allow more things to be in focus, but lets in much less light so your shutter speeds will be much slower.

[Avalonthas]

Aight I am gonna try the AV option right now and get back to you. Hopefully it works.

[Avalonthas]

Wow it worked. Thats so awesome, i took a shot of my new iron against my kitchen and it totally blured out the kitchen. Sweet!!! I know my camera isnt a digital rebel but dang i can get some nice shots outdoors tommorow morning of like a pond flower or somethin. Thanks alot pcasciola and everyone else.

http://www.ctcolonies.com/%7Efunpark/Avmode.jpg

[CyberDyneSystems]

From another post;

The lens is not the only ingredient that goes into making a "smooth" bokeh. ("bokeh" is the word for this blurred out of focus part of your image)

You can acheive good results with lenses that have much smaller apertures.. to do so the composition has to be thought through.

The most important aspect of composition to acheive smooth even bokeh is distance from subject to background realitive to camera from background.

Increase this distance and your background blur improves.

...try also to keep the background a constant distance.. if it is fading away at an angle it will have different parts of the background recieving differing amounts of blur.. thus making the bokeh inconsisant....

[pcasciola]

Get a little closer to the box and the background will be blurred even more, like this one that I shot at f/2.8. I was about a foot away from the box and the wall in the background was about 6-8 feet away.

http://www.casciola.com/pics/tamron_f28_box_full.jpg

[Avalonthas]

I captured the same image about at just over a foot away at f/2.4 and it was like 5 times better then my original images. Thanks for the tip. I printed a few 4x6's on my kodak photo printer and they came out so pofessional looking, im so happy. Thanks a bunch again. Unfortunetly its 1:30am here so there isnt much interesting to shoot except for my iron lol

[KevC]

Hehe. This is why I want that 50mm f/1.8 so badly. My widest on both lenses is only f/3.5 ;(
No good for flash-less photography indoors.

[Avalonthas]

Hmm seems i have another newb question to ask hehe. All of the pics ive been taking have been with the flash because i am indoors at night, but when i took the flash off for no particular reason and took some more shots the camera took the shot 3 times in a row. It was still ste at AVmode and at f/2.8, how come it does that?

[kawter2]

i think you accidentally put the camera in sequence shot mode. I'm not familiar with the pro1 but I know with some P&S it is easy to accidentally change some settings that you dont intend to.

[Avalonthas]

I looked it up in the manual and its called "Auto Exposure Bracketing" and it says it takes 3 shots, one with standard exposure, one underexposure and one overexposure, and it doesnt say how to turn it off, or only take one kind of exposure. Cuz when im outdoors i dont intend to use the flash and at the same time dont want it always taking 3 shots, blah :P

[Avalonthas]

Well I fine tuned my technique, so i took the below photo in Avmode, also in macro mode, at f/2.4 aperture. And it looks quite good, with much more bluring in the background then my previous attempts. My pills are a little bright due to the flash but outdoors im sure ill get a nice balance.

I am not sure if macro improves it or not, but my friend said i should always use macro when im taking pics of objects up close.

http://www.ctcolonies.com/%7Efunpark/pills.jpg

[kawter2]

wow yea that is exposure bracketing allright!! hum I wouldn't know what to tell you to do that would get rid of it. If you were on a 20d I could get it turned off in a snaep but the pro1 i know nothing about.


btw on the 20d by default i think exp brac goes away after the given bracket is complete, I.E. you have to set it each 3 shots i would expect the pro1 to folow these guidlines if the 20d does it that way

[Olegis]

Don't forget that the P&S cameras will have much more DOF (= much less background blur) than DSLR, assuming you set both cameras at the same equivalent focal length and f-stop number and shoot the same object. That is because of much smaller sensors of P&S cameras - that thing was driving me crazy before I upgraded to DSLR.

[Avalonthas]

It doesnt really bother me that much that it takes 3 diff exposures of the same image as it gives me more choice, but im worried bout the space it takes up, because i shoot all my pics on superfine/max res so its taking up lots of space on my card. I have a 1gig 80x lexar pro card but if i venture out for a day its prolly not gonna be enough as it only allows 300 shots at max res/superfine, so in reality i would only get 100 shots, unless i used flash which isnt neccessary outdoors.

But anyways right now im pretty satisfied with the blur i am getting with the flash (see tylenol pic above) which is pretty good for a stock camera without any lens/filters or anything. I want to invest in some lenses or filters soon though. But first i must look for a lens cap as i have lost mine lol. Dont wanna scratch up my stock lens or i got nothin hehe.

[charlesu]

Shallow DOF is great for portraits....

http://ompi.onemodelplace.com/OMP_Images/Photographer/3661/3661_p_853CC707-2B3D-897A-2560E2299F6306D0.jpg

I must have been at F 1.4 or maybe 1.8 on this one.

[skcarl]

Hi guys! What if I'm using IXUS 50 can I still blur the background. I was trying it since last week but I failed....

[skcarl]

up

[DavidW]

Background blur with an Ixus is going to be very hard to achieve. The sensor is tiny compared to a DSLR, and the maximum aperture of the lens, particularly at the telephoto end, quite narrow.

I have managed quite good background blur with an Ixus, but only when shooting macro objects with the background quite distant. The combination of short focussing distance and large separation to the background is your only hope of background blur in camera. If you can't do it in camera, do it in post-processing (such as the Lens Blur filter in Photoshop CS2).


The wish for selective focus or good images in low light has me reaching immediately for my DSLR and fast lenses. Whilst much in photography is about the photographer's skill, there are times when there is no substitute for the proper equipment for the task.



David

[DocFrankenstein]

Hi guys! What if I'm using IXUS 50 can I still blur the background. I was trying it since last week but I failed....
Small sensor makes it impossible. You need a larger sensor (read XT with a separate lens)