Background Blur

[Belga]

I have taken the below photo with my 35mm Minolta 404 with 75 - 300 mm zoom lense. Last december i bought a Canon G6 to join the film-less digital age. Somehow i can not manage to get the same blur on my portrait photos no matter how hard i try. I have put the F-stop down as much as possible and have even tried the neutral density filter. By the way, what exactly does the ND do except to give me slower shutter speeds???

Would appreciate some comments.

[jimsolt]

I have taken the below photo with my 35mm Minolta 404 with 75 - 300 mm zoom lense. Last december i bought a Canon G6 to join the film-less digital age. Somehow i can not manage to get the same blur on my portrait photos no matter how hard i try. I have put the F-stop down as much as possible and have even tried the neutral density filter. By the way, what exactly does the ND do except to give me slower shutter speeds???

Would appreciate some comments.

Having owned a G6 and now a DSLR, I can tell you that the G6 will not give you the same background blur as the DSLR. It has to do with lots of technical stuff others can explain better. I can tell you that the same principles apply -- longer focal length and shallower depth of field.

As to the ND filter, it does nothing other than cut down the amount of light getting through the lens, hence the slower shutter speeds WHICH BY THE WAY could be self defeating if your goal is to achieve background blur. You wish to use larger apertures resulting in less depth of field to achieve that blur, and the ND filter can help you if you use it in that way.

Jim

[CyberDyneSystems]

The lens and senssor size arrithmatic on the small point and shoot cameras like the G6 give them a very very deep depth of feild..

It is not realy possible to get the same results from these cameras as you would with an SLR's larger sensor.

[RafaPolit]

Just to emphasize what Jim said: You are doing this the wrong way, lower values of f/stop apertures (therefore larger apertures :idea: ) will provide the shallow depth of field that you require. The G6 has one of the fastest lenses in the powershot series, allowing you an f2.0 in wide, and f3.0 in tele.

Better depth of field is achieved towards the long side of the focal lenght also, so setting the lens to 80mm (35mm equivalent) or longer will reduce your focused area.
A good starting setting can be: 80mm with f2.5, or f2.2 if the lens allows it at that focal distance. To have control of the depth of field, use the camera in Av setting, and put the f value as numerically low (faster or larger aperture) as possible, and try zooming in rather than getting closer to your subject.

I wouldnt recomend the ND filter, because it will force the camera to use this lower f/stop values to allow more light, but will also throw the shutter speed way down (unless you are in bright sunshine) and will probably result in blured photos.

By the way, it is true that a DSLR will yield much better and shallower depth of field, but you can get good results if you take control of this settings and Im sure you will be happy with the results ;) .

Hope this helps,

Rafael Pólit (jr.)
Quito, Ecuador.

[Michaelmjc]

It took me years (not really years but you know) to find out how to get the background blur with my G1, try pushing the macro button. it will focus on the person and make the background blurry, alwso mess around with the manual focus button.

[Belga]

Micheal,
Maybe you've got something with the macro function mode. Will definitely try it out. Thanks!

[RAW]

Check this post...you have examples with G6 and no macro used, and you have the settings used to take the picture:


http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=74464


Tip:
-Try placing the subject as further as you can from the background.
-Push the lens to its longest telephoto.
-Use The largest aperture.
-Focus manualy.


Good luck,
Artan

[zacker]

macro mode works for my pro1 that way also.
-zacker-

[BobSeber]

Hi! I had exactly the same sorts of problems. I wrote a background blur calculator since I couldn't find one elsewhere on the web:

http://www.robertseber.com/calculators/backgroundblur.html

[EpHeSuS]

Hi! I had exactly the same sorts of problems. I wrote a background blur calculator since I couldn't find one elsewhere on the web:

http://www.robertseber.com/calculators/backgroundblur.html

I believe it would be called a Depth Of Field calculator. Correct me if I'm wrong please ;)

In regards to the original post:

You will not be able to get the same amount of background blue with a P&S camera due to the size of their sensors. If you like bokeh... go with a DSLR :p

[BobSeber]

According to Wikipedia "The depth of field (DOF) is the distance in front of and behind the subject which appears to be in focus":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

The depth-of-field doesn't indicate how blurry a background will be. It tells you how much of your subject will be in focus. These are not the same thing.

It is hard to blur backgrounds with compacts because they use small sensors and small focal lengths. If you want more background blur you should buy a camera with a large sensor.

[Belga]

I have now seen on Photoshop how to do the background blur very effectively, although it takes some time to perfect. Really difficult to cut the subject correctly without losing some part of detaail. The lense blur functions is very effective as well as gausian blur.

[BobSeber]

I have now seen on Photoshop how to do the background blur very effectively, although it takes some time to perfect. Really difficult to cut the subject correctly without losing some part of detaail. The lense blur functions is very effective as well as gausian blur.

Suggestion:

Cut out the subject and paste it on a new layer
Hide the subject layer and switch to editing the background
Use the clone tool to remove the subject from the background
Blur the background
Re-show the subject layer
If you don't do this the subject itself will become part of the blur, which often results in a fuzzy halo type effect.

[Belga]

Suggestion:

Cut out the subject and paste it on a new layer
Hide the subject layer and switch to editing the background
Use the clone tool to remove the subject from the background
Blur the background
Re-show the subject layer
If you don't do this the subject itself will become part of the blur, which often results in a fuzzy halo type effect.

Yes, but what do you do when the subject's hair is blowing in the wind. Its damn difficult to cut around the individual hairs. :D
I ve heard something about creating a depth mask, but do not know how and have not tried yet.

[BobSeber]

Yes, but what do you do when the subject's hair is blowing in the wind. Its damn difficult to cut around the individual hairs. :D


The irony is that this is a lot easier to do when the background is blurred, since PhotoShop is better at automatically detecting a sharp edge against a blurred background.