Blur background

[JohnAyySays]

I am new to photography and i would like to know if its possible to blur backgrounds without zooming into my subject. I have an 18-55mm and 55-250mm lens and a Canon T1i. I was taking a picture of my friend in aperture priority mode and i set my aperture to the lowest F stop. I saw a little blur but not enough to make him stand out. Was it due because i didn't zoom in? Or is it always required to zoom into your subject to get the blur? Thank You(:

[FlyingPhotog]

You had the right idea shooting wide open but try your 55-250 @ 250 and physically back up until your subject fits the frame in the same fashion as your original attempt.

Greater camera to subject distance (and subject to background distance) will yield a softer background.

[JohnAyySays]

Ohh okay thanks alot man(:

[tkbslc]

The two lenses you have would be considered "slower" lenses because they have smaller aperture ranges. F4-f5.6 is not considered a large aperture. So in order to overcome the smaller apertures of your lens, you do need to zoom in. Like Jay said, you can use 250mm and the blur is quite great, But you have to stand way back. You can also use like 70mm f4 and get closer to your subject for some reasonably large amount of blur. But ideally, if you want those kinds of portraits, you would step up to a lens with a very large aperture. One affordable option is the 50mm f1.8, but really anything with an f2.8 or larger aperture will do nicely.

So basically:

Longer lens = more background blur
Faster/Larger aperture = more background blur.