How to blur image backrounds?

Question

I love photography, but there is a skill I can't figure out. I do "Close UP" on my camera, but it doesn't work. I have a pentax 6 MP digi touch screen camera, but that may not make a difference

I want to know how to take a picture of, say a leaf, and be able to blur everything in the backround. Like have the leave up close.

This may be a little wordy, but it gets the point across

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Trial and error is a good way to find things out. Since you are working with a digital camera, and I don't use the things, there is no excessive cost or wait to find out what works.

What you have been told about shutter speed and aperture is good information. However what I would recommend is bracketing to see what works the way that you want it.

Bracketing is done by most professional photographers. With film, for instance, it can get expensive - especially with medium and large format cameras. And it can take time to get the results since it takes time to develop the film and print it.

I take a lot of pictures of flowers that I find either while hiking or in the yard - things that I don't know what they are or things that I think are very interesting and, perhaps, limited in where you can see them.

Carefully keeping notes about what your shutter speed and aperture are, take a zillion pictures, each time changing the speed and/or the aperture. If you can turn your camera auto focus off, do that. Of the zillion of pictures that you will take, one will have the thing that you are looking for. Compare the pictures and see what is happening every time, for instance, that you have your camera set a f5.6 and change the shutter speed from 1000 of a second all the way down to whereever you want it.

That is basically what I do with a 67 format camera (about 4x larger than 35mm). It cost me a lot of money, but I get the picture I want. I usually take four bracketed shots - one at what the meter says, one an f stop smaller, and 2 at successive larger f stops. (or I use shutter speeds).

If you do as I do, take pictures of plants, bugs, etc, lighting is extremely important and I would suggest that you have a hand held light meter, probably one with a spot meter on it, to make sure that the lighting on the subject is correct and you are not averaging light in the whole picture.

Answer 2

I'm not familiar with that camera, but in general here's how it's done. The concept you're referring to is called "depth of field". A wide DOF leaves many things in focus a narrow just leaves specific things in focus. DOF is controled by aperature setting which on an SLR (single lens reflex) camera, such as a typical 35mm, would be the ring on the lens. The smaller the setting the narrower the DOF. For example the settings being 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, & 32. A 5.6 will be narrowest and a 32 will be widest. These are commonly referred to as "F stops" and designated as F 5.6 or F 22 etc.

On some digi cameras instead of a ring on the lens you can adjust this in the functions menu someplace, like any other camera setting, but the numbers (5.6, 8, etc) will be the same no matter what camera you use. If you find numbers like 60, 125, 250, etc. this is a different setting and will not get you the results you want. The aperature will not go above F 64 unless you have a very special camera so use that to help you make sure you have the right controls. Hope this helps, Happy shooting!

Answer 3

your talking about depth of field, where the subject is sharp and the background is blurred. I'm not familiar with your camera but if it's an SLR you really have to play with your lens to get the shot. if it's a point and shoot, i fake it. Useing photoshop and layers and blur. I very rarely get good depth of field with my point and shoot but always get it with my DSLR.

Answer 4

Some setting will do it for you. Portrait will do it and macro settings will also do it for something really close. If not you can do it in photoshop, just double layer it and blur the lower layer and erase all the arear you want blured in the top layer.

Answer 5

If your camera has manual settings open the aperture up as wide as it will go. (lowest number f stop). This will require a faster shutter speed. The wider your aperture, the less depth of focus.

Answer 6

the techniques is "using the Depth of Field"

that can easily be achive when shooting a macro by focusing to the main subject...and the rest will be blur.

Try to set your camera on the macro mode and have it focus.

Answer 7

You may not be able to do it on your camera but if you have a computer you can defiantly do it on there.