In Digital Photography How do you Blur the background to acheive Bokeh ??

Question

Cant seem to achieve this affect while taking Photographs -
Dont understand how to control the Zoom in order to get the background blur - please explain how ???

Answer 1

OPEN up the IRIS.....it shortens the depth of focus.

You want "action blur"? Make your subject stand real still, slow down the shutter, close the iris, then zoom out and hit the button while zooming out.....
Personally I prefer to just find good software to cut and paste the subject into it......

Answer 2

Bokeh is directly related to depth of field, but the nature and limits of application of this direct relationship are not necessarily obvious.

For lenses of differing lengths photographing the same scene at the same aperture, if the subject is made the same apparent size, technically the depth-of-field will be the same. However, assuming the camera is all that moves to alter the apparent subject size, the longer lens will have less distracting detail in the background, i.e., a subjectively greater degree of bokeh, because the long lens has a narrow field of view—meaning that a smaller portion of the background will be in view behind the subject.

A shorter lens will show a wider angle of view of the background, so even though the details individually have the same degree of blurring, there are typically many more such details filling the same area of the image, and the eye will perceive this as "more detail". If the background has almost no detailed features, it would be hard to notice the difference in either regard

Answer 3

It's going to be darn hard to "de-focus" too much using your camera while keeping the main subject in sharp focus.

Most of the pictures you take with your camera are quite sharp from near to far distances and there is a reason for that which I will explain.

While we speak in terms of the 35 mm equivalency of digital lenses, don't forget that the digital sensors are usually smaller than a full-format 35 mm frame. The Elph's have one of the smaller point and shoot sensors. It's only about 5 mm wide and 4 mm high. The lens on required to cover that angle of view is an ACTUAL 6-17 mm zoom lens. At these focal lengths, the background is going to almost always be in pretty sharp focus. In other words, if you WANT to defocus the background, you are going to have to work pretty hard at it. You would have to zoom to the longer end of the lens and set the aperture open as wide as it will go, if your camera even allows you to control the aperture, and get pretty close to your main subject while having teh background a fair distance away.

Answer 4

Does your camera have a manual setting? If it does, you set f-stop to a smallest number, then your camera will focus the subject and blur the front and the back. If your camera do not have manual setting, set it to portrait, it will do quite the same. However, the subject must be far away from the background. You can not get really blur if the background is the wall right behind you.

If you want the sharp back ground, set your camera to biggest f-stop (this is same as landscape setting.)

Note that when setting f-stop. you must set shutter speed appropriate to get the right exposure. May be you need to read to learn how to use shutter priority (you set shutter speed and let camera auto sets the aperture (f-stop)), or you can use aperture priority (you set aperture and let camera auto set the shutter speed). If the shutter speed is to long, you might need a tripod.

Answer 5

It is not the zoom that controls it, its your aperture setting that will keep foreground in focus and background out of focus. you can do it easily with photoshop also, duplicate the layer with the initial photo on it, blur it, then rub out the blurred section you want sharp with rubber to reveal the sharp layer underneath it.

Answer 6

More zoom you use, the shorter the focal plain (less that can be in focus at once).

Couple this with a Fstop like3.8 or 5 and if shortens your focal plain again.

Good luck