Blurring Your Backgrounds for Dummies by a Dummy

            Another question that I get asked quite frequently when people view my photos is, “How do you get those blurred backgrounds in your photos?”

            While the answer can get a little technical the act of creating pictures with a “blurred” background can be pretty easy as long as you understand a couple of simple concepts and how to operate your camera.

            The caveat here is that while it is possible to get “blurred” backgrounds with compact cameras it is often a little more difficult. Generally speaking you have to be able to set your camera in “M”anual or “Av” mode or in the very least be able to control the focal length of your lens. Generally speaking it is easiest to get a blurred background with a SLR but that isn’t the only way. Some of the newer compact cameras will allow you to control the shutter speed, f-stop, and focal length and if so than you are in business. If not we will have to get this done another way. Of course this is the part where you get out the manual and learn how to set the values identified above. I can’t help you learn your camera, only the technique.

            Since most of you are probably groaning about the “how to operate your camera”  or are grunting about the “read your manual” part lets start with the simple concepts.

              Concept 1: Depth of Field

            You may hear photographers talking about depth of field or see the abbreviation “DoF” and wondered exactly what it was. Stated very simply depth of field is the area within the picture that is in focus. If you want the official definition you can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field for a more precise answer.

Bokeh is another term for Blur 

           Now depth of field is controlled by a number of mechanisms relating to both the camera, yourself and the scene you are taking a picture of but we will get to those in a moment. Instead lets take a quick moment to understand what DoF means within the framework of a scene that you might be photographing.

            Let’s suppose you are standing on the goal line of a football field with your camera. The field itself has players on it throwing around a football. You decide that you want to take a picture of a player on the 50 yard line. You look through your viewfinder, set the exposure, get the shot in focus and take the picture. When you look at the shot you notice that the players 10 yards before and 10 yards after are in focus but everything else is progressively blurrier. You think, wow that looks nice, wonder how that happened.

            Well this is a simple example of depth of field and illustrates another concept regaring DoF. DoF is made up of two parts; Near limit and far limit. The near limit is the edge of the area that would be in focus closest to the camera and the far limit is the edge of the area that would be in focus furthest from the camera.

In our example above the near limit would be 40 yards away and the far limit 60 yards away. Any people or objects within that 20 yards will be in focus and the rest, to a varying degree, will not. That’s it.

Concept II: The Why

So now that we understand what depth of field is we should take a quick second to ask ourselves why we would want to use it in our photography.

Note how the men stand out here

While saying that it looks good might be our favorite answer that doesn’t address  why we think it looks good. Simply put blurring out everything other than the person or thing that you want to photograph makes them stand out. Essentially there is nothing to distract the viewer from what you want them to look at…your baby, the dog, a pretty flower etc. and this is pleasing to us.

If the background isn’t blurry our brains want to explore what we are seeing and less emphasis is given to viewing what the photographer wanted you to view (usually a person) in the first place. Essentially your subject must compete with the background you have placed them in front of and that is generally undesirable.

Now of course if your intention is to get a picture that shows someone in front of a famous landmark you probably wouldn’t blur the background. However if you are taking pictures of your daughter in the garden you might want to blur the garden out so that your beautiful child stands out. That’s it.

So now we get to the tricky part, the mechanics of making this happen.

Background with no detail

Your Camera and You

Okay so before I actually tell you how to do utilize this technique we must make sure that your understand the settings on your camera and lens. We will keep this simple for both you and me so don’t worry about heavy explanations.

1)      Aperture aka F-stop – The camera’s lens is just like your eye and the aperture is like the pupil. The larger the pupil the more light is let in. The smaller the pupil the less light is let in. In addition to this the larger the pupil the smaller the DoF, the smaller the pupil the larger the DoF. Small aperture, lots of DoF. Large aperture little DoF. Aperture is expressed as a number with an “f” in front of it such as f8 or f4.

2)      Focal Length – Put simply this refers to the zoom on your camera lens. Zoom is expressed in millimeters as “mm”. The lower the number the further zoomed out you are, the higher the number the further zoomed in you are. So if you were taking a photograph of the player at the 50 yard line at 18mm you would see him very small surrounded by players in a large stadium. In other words you would see more of everything commonly called wide-angle. If you photographed him at 400mm you might only see his face. In other words you are seeing less of everything commonly known as telephoto. The key here is that the farther we zoom the generally smaller the DoF becomes or the more profound the effect.

3)      Camera to Subject Distance – While this is not a setting on your camera this is literally how far the camera is from the subject. Generally speaking as we get closer to our subject the smaller our DoF becomes, especially at longer focal lengths. The camera to subject distance is very important as for many of us this it is this factor that will decide whether or not our backgrounds are blurred.

Soft Background - Cute Subject

Enough Talk Dummy! Give Me the Recipe

Okay so now that you understand the basics of DoF lets get to the doing part.

First, and if you have the capability, lets put a “longer” lens on your camera. By longer I simply mean a lens that zooms out further, say a 50-200mm lens. If your lens is permanently attached but can be zoomed in or out zoom it out to 50mm. If you have put a zoom lens on the camera set it to 50mm or the focal length closest to 50mm.

Next set your f-stop to its lowest value. This will require you to adjust your shutter speed if you are shooting in “M”anual. If you are shooting in “Av” mode than the camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed for you.

Setting the f-stop to its lowest value means that the aperture is as large as the lens will allow and as we learned above this gives us the smallest depth of field. Of course logic would dictate that the larger the “f” value the larger the aperture but in this case logic would be WRONG. It is an inverse relationship meaning that as the f number goes up the aperture’s size goes down.  So again we want a low f value, say f4 or f5.6 or lower.

Lastly bring your subject outside somewhere that you can put some objects in the distance behind them but you can still get close. I would suggest a long road and take the picture looking down the street. The idea here will be to take a photo of just their face or torso. Get close enough to fill the viewfinder or LCD screen with however much you decide to shoot.. You don’t want to go overboard, leave some background in, but still get close so they dominate the frame and take the shot.

Now review the shot in your LCD. When you review the photo those objects closer to your subject might be a little blurry but the objects in the distance should just be blobs.

            Now try zooming out further to say 70 or 100mm if possible. Reposition yourself slightly to attempt to take the same shot (don’t change the f value) and fire away. You should notice that even the objects closer to your subject have gotten blurrier. You have now learned how to make your subject stand out against a background by blurring or “softening” it. That’s it. 

           From here on out the only thing left to do is keep shooting until you have perfected the technique enough to satisfy yourself. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

Buying a Camera; How I made my decision on what to buy.

Choosing a Camera –

            Occasionally I am asked what kind of camera I own and immediately after I respond I get the follow up question, “I want to get a camera but not sure what I should get. Any suggestions?”

My answer to this question is always the same, “Depends on what your goals are in photography. What kinds of pictures are looking to take?” I usually get some unsure shrugs or a terse response about liking to take pictures and after a brief conversation with the questioner they are usually left with some ideas to ponder.

While the idea of understanding your photographic goals to help you choose a camera isn’t unique and there are a hundred websites more qualified than my blog to help you make this decision I still thought I would offer my thoughts on how I made my decision. The thought process I followed worked well for me and I believe will work just as well for someone with a very general knowledge of cameras and photography looking to buy something that is going to suit them

            When choosing a camera for myself it came down to two things;

1)      What are my photographic goals

2)      What I could afford in camera and gear

As I thought about it I realized that my goals broke down into three distinct

categories and understanding and then choosing within one of these would greatly help me make my decision.

            First I had to decide if I wanted to just take snapshots. Snapshots for me are pictures snapped on the fly meant to simply record a memory with no other apparent objective.

Snapshots are by their very nature informal and don’t pay attention to many (if any) of the "rules" of photography. I have taken thousands of these on vacation, in the back yard, cooking dinner or anywhere else I was just trying to capture an image of a nice memory. Snapshots lack the planning or attention to the “rules” of photography that the other two categories observe. This is generally a “one and done” type approach to a given situation for which almost all cameras are suited but not really priced for.

For the purposes of capturing snapshots I realized that a point and shoot style camera would be most suited and cost effective. They tend to be more compact and rugged while still able to capture quality images. There is no training, reading or work to do with these cameras beyond turning on the power, pointing and shooting. The Olympus 8010 or Nikon Coolpix would be good choices but just about any other brand will suit a prospective shooter’s purposes (i.e. Sony, Canon, Minolta)

            The second category I decided was the goal of capturing “photos” which I consider distinct from both snapshots and the third category of capturing photographs.

            Capturing “photos” (to me) means that a modicum of attention is paid to the techniques of exposure and composition but nothing too heavy. For instance the rules of thirds and odds are understood if not always followed. Those taking photos will try and make sure that lighting is even and there is some sharp detail but isn’t overly concerned with the photo meaning something beyond what it says at face value. I still take lots of photos even though my goals fall more into the third category.

Some examples of taking photos are portraits taken before going out to dinner or those pictures we take of children at Christmas time for cards. I generally care about composition and lighting but am just as interested in also capturing the memory. I might take a few passes at the photo but as long as it is sharp, decently exposed and captures a memory I am usually done.

            For capturing photos micro 2/3rds (Olympus), hybrids (Canon G12) or entry level DSLR (Canon T3 or Nikon 5100) cameras can be used depending on the amount of money you want to spend. Generally speaking a heavy financial investment isn’t needed and the kit lenses would suffice for the goals of this photographer. For someone who expects to do a decent amount of indoor photography a hot shoe mounted flash might also be purchased and something to consider with a camera purchase. Effectively the goal is to capture nice clean, crisp pictures and any of these style cameras can accomplish this.

            The last category for my purposes was the goal of capturing photographs. This is the most involved category where a great amount of attention and detail is paid to both the composition and exposure as well as to the artistic side of capturing a photograph. Capturing a photograph will involve an advanced knowledge of the operation of a camera and photography and requires a tool that can offer power and flexibility. There is nothing worse than planning to take a unique photo in an exotic place only to find out that your camera lacks the ability to do this.

            Being in this category a prospective buyer will want to look at entry level DSLRs and up. Good examples of cameras that can take photographs are the Canon T3i, 60D or 5D mkII and the Nikon 7000 or 300s. These cameras are powerful tools offering a wide array of options and great flexibility to allow you to capture the photographs that you want. The key here is finding a camera that has the features needed to allow your photography to grow.

            It should be mentioned that any camera purchased can serve any purpose. I have seen beautiful photographs taken with iPhones and basic snapshots taken with $6,000 DSLRs. A prospective buyer shouldn’t get hung up on being categorized by the above and it is meant only to serve as a guideline to ensure you end up at least with a tool most suited for the task you are hoping to tackle.

            It is important for someone looking to buy a camera to understand what their photographic goals are and decide what they are looking to get out of photography. By determining this you can not only determine how much money you are going to need to spend but also ensure that you have a chance of success and enjoyment in the hobby.