Newbie Question...

I'd like to search on this technique, but I have no idea what it's called.

It's when you have something in focus (person, animal etc) but the background is fuzzy. Not blurry like an action shot, just fuzzy so the person in the shot is more noticeable.

I'm curious what it's called and how I do it. Thanks in advance.

It is called bokeh. If you use a lens at a large aperture, the background gets blurry, also having the background not too close to the item in focus helps as well.

Cool - thanks! I'll try searching on here and see what I can turn up. I'd like to take some shots like that of my son, but have no clue how to do it.

Actually, it's called a shallow depth of field. But using large apertures and maximizing the separation between your subject and the foreground/background is the way to achieve it. Bokeh is the quality of that blur, and is heavily dependent on the particular lens.

Yeah, what Jon said!

You want to set your lens to it's widest aperture (lowest f-stop number) for the shallowest depth of field. If you have just the kit lens this will be f5.6 at 55mm, use Av mode for starters to try different apertures. Maybe have a look at the canon 50mm f1.8 lens (often referred to as the "nifty fifty") which is a good, cheap start (around £70) in shallow depth of field range of lenses.

You can also add a selective blur with software like photoshop but that's quite a bit more of an in-depth "how to" and more suited to the image processing section of the forum.

The larger the aperture (smaller numbers) the shallower the DOF. The longer the focal length of the lens and the closer to the subject the shallower the DOF. So if you had a 200mm at f/2.8 and you were only 10 feet from the subject your DOF would be about 1 inch. Everything in front of and behind that one inch area of focus would be blurry.

michaelgreen78 wrote in post #5326356
Yeah, what Jon said!

You want to set your lens to it's widest aperture (lowest f-stop number) for the shallowest depth of field. If you have just the kit lens this will be f5.6 at 55mm, use Av mode for starters to try different apertures. Maybe have a look at the canon 50mm f1.8 lens (often referred to as the "nifty fifty") which is a good, cheap start (around £70) in shallow depth of field range of lenses.

You can also add a selective blur with software like photoshop but that's quite a bit more of an in-depth "how to" and more suited to the image processing section of the forum.

I bought the 50mm f1.4 at lunch today. I can't wait to tinker with it later tonight. I'll give your suggestions a try and see how it goes. It should be interesting cause I have no idea what I'm doing!

Wingnut330 wrote in post #5326947
I bought the 50mm f1.4 at lunch today. I can't wait to tinker with it later tonight. I'll give your suggestions a try and see how it goes. It should be interesting cause I have no idea what I'm doing!

So you'll want to shoot at F1.4 area for a shallow depth of field as said above. Use aperture priority or manual to achieve.

You picked a great lens for detail shots, good luck and post some results.

Wingnut330 wrote in post #5326947
I bought the 50mm f1.4 at lunch today. I can't wait to tinker with it later tonight. I'll give your suggestions a try and see how it goes. It should be interesting cause I have no idea what I'm doing!

Nice, even better than the nifty!

I recently got a 30mm f1.4 - it's great for shallow dof.

Remember though that because the dof is so shallow, any movement between focusing and firing the shutter may cause the focus to miss. Not always, but it's possible.

The other added bonus with an aperture of f1.4 is that you have more scope to shoot handheld in low light situations.

I look forward to seeing your results...

OK - so I turn on the camera, switch it to Av, make sure it's at 1.4 and fire away correct?

Wingnut330 wrote in post #5327358
OK - so I turn on the camera, switch it to Av, make sure it's at 1.4 and fire away correct?

Yes that will be a great starting point to try it out. Then you can start raising it to 2.8 then 5.6 and you will start to see more of your background coming into focus.

Wingnut330 wrote in post #5327358
OK - so I turn on the camera, switch it to Av, make sure it's at 1.4 and fire away correct?

Yup. Don't forget to use just a single focus point too otherwise your focus will be all over the place.

michaelgreen78 wrote in post #5327400
Yup. Don't forget to use just a single focus point too otherwise your focus will be all over the place.

I see that I have 9 focus points. Thus far, I have just been shooting things in the center for now. I'm assuming there is a way to pick which of the 9 I want to to use and that you are suggesting learning how to make that choice correct?

Yeah. If you shoot on the centre point, that's fine as it is believed to be the best - most sensitive af point. That, however, can be a bit dull compositionally sometimes and with an aperture at f1.4 you can't do the focus & re-compose trick so easily, so once you're comfortable at hitting focus with the centre point try using a different focus point for more interesting composition.
You should have an af-point selector button (I'm not too farmiliar with the Rebel series) that, once pressed, will enable you to select your focus point.

Wingnut330 wrote in post #5326119
I'd like to search on this technique, but I have no idea what it's called.

It's when you have something in focus (person, animal etc) but the background is fuzzy. Not blurry like an action shot, just fuzzy so the person in the shot is more noticeable.

I'm curious what it's called and how I do it. Thanks in advance.

The term is call "selective focusing"..Works best with wide apertures and/or long lenses when the depth of field is shallow..

The pattern of the out of focus back ground is call the "bokeh"..