How To Blur Backgrounds - Depth of Field for beginners - Bokeh made easy!

in this video I'm going to show you how you can make your background blurry and out of focus this is a very popular photography technique and we generally refer to this as a shallow depth of field I pull here from photo genius welcome to my channel where I like to do photography tutorials I share tips and tricks and do occasional gear reviews as well so if you love your photography consider subscribing now this video is aimed at beginners and the goal of this video is to show you how easy is to blur backgrounds so you don't need any camera knowledge you don't need any photography knowledge to take part in this video I'm going to explain to you how to set up your cameras also going to talk about the camera modes and share with you three essential tips for blurry backgrounds now the camera mode we're going to be using for this video is aperture priority so on your camera dial you want to turn it round to the letter A unless you've got a Canon camera and then it's a V and again I'm going to explain to you exactly what this means in a few moments so today I went out into the garden with a canon and nikon camera to try and get a nice picture of boo our dog now this is easier said than done because she's just a puppy so she's always up for playing and she rarely sits still and for this reason I got through a lot of dog treats but I eventually nailed the shot and this is the picture I got and as you can see the background is nice and blurry once again it's called a shallow depth of field what I want to show you in this video how I did it so let's talk about camera modes now the mode we're using in this video is aperture priority and really to get more creative control over your camera and be able to really advance your photography you want to get out of auto now the great thing about aperture priority is this we're able to control the aperture but the camera still helps herself by looking after the shutter speed so if you like this is a semi manual mode and being able to control the aperture is incredibly important for this video because it's all about controlling depth of field an aperture plays a big part in this now don't worry too much if you don't know what aperture is or what it does I have made a separate video on it I would recommend checking it out I'll put a link up here and also in the description below this video but if I hold this lens up to the camera you'll see what the aperture actually is hopefully you can see that opening and closing so that is the aperture think of a bit like the pupil of the eye the aperture is helping us achieve two things it's able to control how much light passes down the lens into the camera and it also affects our depth of field and that's all you need to know for now so I did say earlier in the video that I want to share with you three tips for a nice blurry background tip number one is all about the aperture now remember the aperture is inside of the lens and it's an opening that we can adjust the larger the aperture is the more shallow the depth of field or the blurry of the background the more we closed the aperture down the sharper the background will be so let me now show you how to change the aperture when you're using aperture priority mode so on this canon t7 we're going to start by selecting aperture priority using the main dial on the top of the camera av is aperture priority on the Canon camera now here's the F number now this is our aperture position the lower the F number the wider or the larger the aperture the bigger the number the smaller the aperture to adjust the aperture we just dialed with the dial on the top of the camera and you'll see the aperture changes now if we weight the camera up by pressing the shutter button and then turn the dial you will see that as I change the aperture which is the F number the number to the left which is the shutter speed is automatically being changed by the camera let's now take a look at an icon this is the Nikon d5 hundred we start by putting the camera into aperture priority mode which of course is a here is our aperture it sits in the middle currently f5 to the right is L is Owen to the left is our shutter speed now once again aperture priority means that we can change in this aperture and the camera changes the shutter speed to change the aperture you just turn the dial on the back of the camera as I doll to the right the F number increases and you can see the shutter speed has been slowed down automatically by the camera and if i dial to the left the aperture opens up it gets wider this is a lower F number and again the camera responds by increasing the shutter speed and that's how you adjust aperture in aperture priority mode so in order to show you how aperture FX depth of field what I did earlier today is I took my Nick on D 3500 out into the gardens take a picture of our dog boo now what I did is I set the lens to 18 millimeters which is the widest view and just as I showed you I turned the dial on the back of the camera and set the aperture to F 3.5 for picture number one then for picture number two I turned to the doll and adjusted the aperture to f/8 for picture number two let's compare the pictures with the aperture at f/8 there isn't any noticeable background blur but opening the aperture to 3.5 and you can see the background starts to soften enlarge the images and put them side-by-side and it becomes a bit clearer how the wider aperture is really starting to blow the background so tip one was about using the aperture to control depth of field tip number two is about adjusting the focal length of the lens to affect depth of field now if you don't understand what focal length means let me just explain it to you it's actually quite easy I'm now gonna switch to a Canon camera and this lens is a standard kit lens chances are you may have a similar lens or maybe the same lens and this lens has a focal length of 80 millimetres to 55 millimeters 18 millimeters is the shortest focal length and that gives us a wide view when we zoom in we're adjusting the focal length 55 millimeters is a longer focal length than 18 millimeters and that means our view is now a bit narrower but our subject appears closer we call this zooming in so adjusting the focal length is a fancy way of saying zooming in or zooming out with your lens now what I want to show you in a moment is how zooming in and adjust in the focal length also impacts our depth of field so I went back out into the garden I took another two photos of boo and I shot one image at the widest focal length which is 18 mil and then I extended the focal length to 55 millimetres for a second image and let's have a look at the results with the lens at 80 millimetres and the aperture wide open we do get some softness in the background but clearly once you zoom in it's much more notice of place the two images once again side by side and the image on the right of 55 millimeters clearly has a nicer blurry background now when you're trying this out for yourself you will find that adjusting the focal length of the lens has an impact on the aperture you may recall a few moments ago in the video we opened the aperture to its widest because that gives us a nice blurry background and that was F 3.5 but sadly with most lenses including these kit lenses as you zoom in or adjust or extend the focal length of the lens f 3.5 actually closes down to F 5.6 now with these particular lenses there's nothing we can actually do about that there are lenses that have what is called a constant aperture and that means that the zoom doesn't have an impact on the aperture at all that's a constant aperture lens they do tend to be the more professional and more expensive type lenses but other than that it's just something we have to live with but I wanted to just mention this as a side note so what we've learned here is that extending the focal length from the lens directly affects our depth of field the longer the focal length the blurry of the background so what if we've got a second lens it's even bigger well some of you might be lucky and have a second lens like this telephoto lens this will fit this Canon camera here and of course this is an even longer focal length basically the longer the lens the blurry and the background it's not just for sports and shooting wildlife these are really cool lenses so I took this lens and this Canon t7 1500 D out into the garden to take another picture of boo and let me show you the result this is actually one of my favorite images of the day a nice photo of boo clearly the backgrounds nice and blurry this is shot with the canon t7 and the telephoto lens set to just 100 millimeters okay so it's all coming together for us we're getting a nice blurry background and that's because we're following the tips tip number one was open the aperture up nice and wide tip number two was zoom in with the lens or extend the focal length but what about tip number three tip number three is actually the easiest of the lot bring your camera closer to the objet the closer you bring your camera to the subject the more shallow the depth of field or the more blurry at the background will be so using this canon t7 1500 d standard kit lens of 55 millimeters and the aperture as wide as the lens will allow I took another three photos of boo let's take a look now reminder here that I'm not using the zoom the camera settings remain the same the difference between these images is just that I'm moving closer to boo and by the look on her face I think is clear she'd had enough of being my model for the day now a little bonus tip here is not to get too close for the camera because every lens has its limits if you get too close the lens won't be out of focus so how close is too close well usually it's marked on the lens sometimes it's written around at the front of the lens on this particular Canon lens is written just underneath here and it says macro not 0.25 M or meters naught point 8 ft which is feet which basically tells me that I can't get any closer than 0.25 meters or naught point 8 feet if I do this lens won't be able to focus the word macro here is a bit deceiving this lens is certainly not a macro lens it's not ideal for macro so don't be deceived if a lens says macro here it's just telling you that if you get closer than these numbers the lens won't focus now do have a couple more really important tips for you they come up in a moment before we do that let's go through our checklist so for a nice blurry background tip one was open the aperture wide that is the lowest F number and that's the reason we're using the aperture priority mode tip number two is if you've got a zoom lens zoom in or extend the focal length for the lens and if you've got a second lens which is even bigger try that one as well and tip number three the easiest of the lot if possible and if practical try and get closer to the subject if you're really far away from your subject chances are unless you've got our big expensive Pro lens you're not going to get a blurry back ground get really close if you can so that's the checklist now got some bonus tips now bonus tip use this technique not just to blow backgrounds but also to blur foregrounds as well I've been talking a lot in this video about blowing backgrounds but people sometimes don't think about the foreground as well if you've placed something in the foreground you can use it to add almost another layer to your image it looks really nice or you can use it maybe as a way of framing your subject so all you got to do is make sure that you focus in the middle of the frame where your subject is and anything in the foreground will blur just in the same way that the background will now what about those times when you don't actually want the background to be blurry you want the background to be sharp as well as your subject landscape photographers landscape photographers don't like blow your backgrounds they like everything to be nice and sharp all you got to do is instead of using the aperture wide close it down if a will be a good style F 11 is the classic aperture setting for landscape photographers generally so again experiment try shoot in a subjects with the aperture wide open try it closed down to maybe f8 f11 f-16 experiment that's the way you learn if you want sharp backgrounds make the aperture smaller if you're blurry backgrounds make the aperture wider now I really couldn't wrap up a video about blowing backgrounds without mentioning briefly prime lenses a prime lens is a lens a dozen zoom it has a fixed focal length now whilst that is a bit strange at first you soon get used to it what it lacks in zoom it more than makes up for in terms of aperture now you'll recall earlier using the kit lens our widest aperture is F 3.5 but when we zoom in which is what I recommended your aperture drops to F 5.6 now with these prime lenses the aperture opens up to 1.8 now F 1.8 is extremely wide and that's good on two fronts number one it lets more light into the lens so these lenses perform really well in low light but number two and most important considering the subject bigger the aperture the more shallow the depth of field so you can blur backgrounds almost effortlessly using prime lenses like these this is the Canon 50 millimeter lens often called the nifty 50 this is the Nikon 35 millimeter lens I'll put details on these in the description below the video in case you want to check them out so I hope you've enjoyed the video if you did please give us a thumbs up if you take some photos using the techniques you've learned and you post them to Instagram make sure you take photo genius Brisbane that way I can see them and I love seeing your photos don't forget you can leave your comments suggestions and questions down below and if you're not a subscriber please consider subscribing to my channel I'll see you next time see ya bye

Channel: Photo Genius

Views: 407,920

Keywords: how to blur background, shallow depth of field, depth of field explained, how to blur background in canon dslr, photography tips, photography tutoriual, how can I blur the background of a picture, dslr, canon, nikon, canon t7, nikon d3500, how to control depth of field, what is a shallow depth of field, photography for beginners, photography basics, photography tricks and tips, 50mm, nifty fifty, how do I blur background in camera

Id: wjsIoUJ_4JU

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 15 2020