We’ve all seen lovely pictures where the object is completely targeted while the background is blurred. Such a photograph can be terribly dramatic and might appear to be tough to shoot. You’ll also understand what Depth of Field is and the way to control it. Depth of field (sometimes called DOF) is the most significant thing to appreciate before shooting an indistinct background photograph. Depth of field is outlined as the range in which the photo is in focus. For instance an unending depth of field suggests that the photograph will be in focus from a certain distance from the camera and up to infinity. When taking a hazy photograph the goal is to set the depth of field just around the object. In this manner the object is in focus while the background behind it isn’t. How do you control the depth of field? After all there’s no “depth of field” menu in the camera (would not that be nice).
Depth of field is an optical figure that is influenced by some factors. The distance of the object from the camera: This is apparent to appreciate when brought to the max. Shooting an object ten feet from the camera will end in a smaller depth of field than shooting an object one hundred feet from the camera. Manifestly shooting an object which for all real purpose is infinite distance from the camera will end up in the camera concentrated on infinity and the depth of field being infinite too. The aperture: The wider the aperture ( f number decreases ) the littler the depth of field and vice versa : the narrower the aperture ( f number increases ) the bigger the depth of field. Just remember the depth of field changes together with the f number: when the f number increases and depth of field increases and vice versa. Sadly you can’t just change the aperture as you wish. Changing the aperture leads to a requirement to change the shutter speed (either by hand or the camera can likely do that for you mechanically). The wider the aperture the more light that penetrates the lens and the quicker the shutter speed should be so there’s a limit to how wide you can set the aperture to.
The focal length of the lens: The shorter the focal length the bigger the depth of field and vice versa the longer the focal length the more small the depth of field. As an example if you use ordinary lenses at somewhere around 50mm your depth of field will be much bigger than if you use zoom lenses at 200mm. With long focal length the depth of field can be highly little. For this reason zoom lenses are a sensible choice in order to shoot a good hazy photograph that is practically targeted only on the object. After understanding the concept it’s best to go to the field and experiment. You’ll get a feeling of how your photo will look like and how fuzzy the background will be after playing with different lenses, different apertures and different distances from your object. If you have got zoom lenses commence with taking pictures of a comparatively close object while using your zoom lenses. You may find out that it is extremely easy to get a blurry background photograph using this technique even without setting the aperture.
Once you are feeling ok with that setup start changing the aperture and also change to your ordinary 18mm-55mm or similar lenses. Most cameras permit to manually change the aperture by putting the camera in “A” mode while you are changing the aperture the camera will mechanically set the shutter speed appropriately. Some cameras let you by hand set both aperture and shutter speed. To conclude shooting dramatic indistinct background photographs is simple with some minimal appreciation of depth of field and some experimenting.
Tags: Blurry Background, Portrait Photos