How the heck do I achieve this DOF?

I really want to achieve this DOF in my photos - where the person and their entire body are completely in focus, but the background suddenly becomes out of focus. Here is an example of what I am trying to achieve. I have a good understanding of the basics of photography, and I know using a larger aperture, more zoom, and having more distance between subject and background will do this. But for some reason I have never quite achieved that perfect look where the whole body is in focus, but nothing else is. I usually get only the face in focus, and their body is OOF. Or the background is not blurry enough.

So what settings do you need to achieve this? Is it because I need a larger aperture than the f4 on my 70-200? Or is it because I dont have a full frame body? Can anyone help??? Some examples and settings would be appreciated!

You should easily get that on you Tamron.

I agree with powerslave regarding the f/4 capabilities of your 70-200, that you should be able to get some very nice shots.

But judging by the extremely shallow DOF of the samples you link, I wouldn't be surprised if those were shot at f/2.8 (perhaps using a 70-200 f/2.8 ) or possible f/2.0 (using the 135mm f/2.0). I only suggest those lenses/apertures because I've seen similar results on the thread discussing the 135mm. - Stu

You need to calculate a DOF that is wide enough to have the entire body in focus, but narrow enough to blur the background/foreground. Precise focus is also required. There are many only calculators that can do this for you, but many people recommend this one, a version of which can be downloaded to a PDA for use in the field:

http://www.dofmaster.c​om

sapearl wrote in post #6822067
I agree with powerslave regarding the f/4 capabilities of your 70-200, that you should be able to get some very nice shots.

But judging by the extremely shallow DOF of the samples you link, I wouldn't be surprised if those were shot at f/2.8 - (perhaps using a 70-200 f/2.8) or possible f/2.0 (using the 135mm f/2.0). I only suggest those lenses/apertures because I've seen similar results on the thread discussing the 135mm. - Stu

Most of the shots he was using an 85 1.8 at anywhere from 2.0 to 3.5. Looks like he did use a 135 on the 2nd pic though.

Guapo wrote in post #6822102
Most of the shots he was using an 85 1.8 at anywhere from 2.0 to 3.5. Looks like he did use a 135 on the 2nd pic though.

Yup that's what the EXIF data on the photos show (first thing I checked )

Having a FF camera will definatly help, but mostly it's in the lens. You should be able to achieve this with your Tamron at 75mm f/2.8 or even your 70-200 zoomed all the way to 200mm shot wide open at f/4.

All of those pictures appear to be edited with Photoshop CS2, which sharpening was probably added, I'm sure they didn't look quite like that straight out of the camera.

It's also possible he applied a sharpenning layer just to the people, and left the background untouched, or maybe added a bit of gaussian blur to that area only.

DStanic wrote in post #6822283
......All of those pictures appear to be edited with Photoshop CS2, which sharpening was probably added, I'm sure they didn't look quite like that straight out of the camera.

sapearl wrote in post #6822384
It's also possible he applied a sharpenning layer just to the people, and left the background untouched, or maybe added a bit of Gaussian blur to that area only.

Yes, there is something very "Gaussian" about some of those backgrounds. If you look at the bokeh qualities on #1 compared to #10, I strongly suspect #1 has been blurred digitally, whereas # 10 looks a lot more "out of camera".

Rad

Radtech1 wrote in post #6822683
Yes, there is something very "Gaussian" about some of those backgrounds. If you look at the bokeh qualities on #1 compared to #10, I strongly suspect #1 has been blurred digitally, whereas # 10 looks a lot more "out of camera".

Rad

I agree. Some of the pics have no "depth of field" whatsoever. They have an instantaneous "in focus" and "out of focus" quality that almost certainly was done in photoshop.

Thanks for the replies. I never would have guessed that the blur was done in photoshop. Looks pretty good to me, I might try it in the future. I made the mistake of looking for exif using DPP and it didnt show up, I will try a different program next time, thanks for making me realise that it was there. Which program do you all use for checking exif?

shniks wrote in post #6822035
I really want to achieve this DOF in my photos - where the person and their entire body are completely in focus, but the background suddenly becomes out of focus. Here is an example of what I am trying to achieve. I have a good understanding of the basics of photography, and I know using a larger aperture, more zoom, and having more distance between subject and background will do this. But for some reason I have never quite achieved that perfect look where the whole body is in focus, but nothing else is. I usually get only the face in focus, and their body is OOF. Or the background is not blurry enough.
So what settings do you need to achieve this? Is it because I need a larger aperture than the f4 on my 70-200? Or is it because I dont have a full frame body? Can nyone help??? Some examples and settings would be appreciated!

you can easily do this with a photoshop plug-in such as fluid mask or mask pro, etc.

shniks wrote in post #6823482
Which program do you all use for checking exif?

I use the Opera browser, just need to right click and "image properties". You can also do this with Firefox but I think you need to install a plug-in.

If you download the picture onto your PC and rightclick-properties-advanced you can view the EXIF that way too.

You certainly could Bob - but that's one of the "issues" with PS or any other photo editing s/w these days: Get it right and natural out of the camera, optically, in first place, or achieve a pseudo effect later on that may or may not look optically correct.

Some folks are so good with PS that their efforts look completely natural. In this case the effect looked pretty good, but a number of us suspected it was a little too manipulated.

bobj1 wrote in post #6823904
you can easily do this with a photoshop plug-in such as fluid mask or mask pro, etc.

I wish I could find a better shot and one at f/4, but here's one I took at 5.6 at 138mm with my 70-200L f/4 on my 30D. I'm sure it's capable of very nice background blur (bokeh)...

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you need a 5D lol