Wednesday, January 2, 2013

How To Create Blurred Backgrounds

HOW DO YOU GET THOSE NICE BLURRED BACKGROUNDS?

This is just one of many techniques I teach in my "Beginning Digital Photography" class at Arapahoe Community College in the Denver area. Here are some key steps to get blurred results like in the image below of a friend's saxophone.

First, there are three factors that will determine the final effects of your blurred backgrounds.
A) The f/stop you choose-- an f/2.8-f/5.6 range works best.
B) The distance from your subject--the closer you are, the more blurred the background.
C) The distance of the nearest object behind your subject. If it is too close to  your subject, 
blurring it becomes a bit of a challenge, but f/2.8 or f/3.5 might still work. If it doesn't, then 
some careful "selective focusing" might do the trick. E-mail me if you need more information on that really cool technique!

 So, given the above information, here are the steps to get those nice blurred backgrounds.
 (for best results, use a tripod and set your focusing to manual focusing)
 1) Determine your composition
 2) Check your exposure--take some test shots
 3) Decide on your focusing point--usually, not always, right on your main/nearest subject
 4) Set desired f/stop. Take a test shot--adjust your f/stop and/or focusing point if necessary
 5) Re-take your shot
 6) And there you have it! Fun, huh?

I have several images with blurred backgrounds in my Abstracts/Close-ups page on my site.

In the image below, you can almost see where my focusing point was (approximately 1/3-1/2 from the top of my viewfinder), using a very shallow f/stop of f/2.8 in order to get really dramatic effects.


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