How To Create Blur In Your Photographs
Create Dreamy Chicago Winter Wonderland Pictures!
I’m sure most of you have seen images where the background is blurred out, giving the picture a dreamy and soft feeling. The blurry effect you are seeing is created with a shallow depth of field.
What is depth of field in a photo? It is an area of sharpness within a photo that will appear in focus. This area or plane of focus can vary in depth (shallow to deep) from image to image.
A shallow depth of field is created when there is a small or narrow plane of focus. This means there will be a large out of focus area in the foreground (area in front of the subject) and the background (area behind the subject). A shallow depth of field is typically used in portrait photography.
A deep depth of field is created when much of the area from foreground to background is in focus. This means many of the details and elements of the picture are in focus. Landscape photography will often use a deep depth of field.
Shallow depth of field: My aperture was f/1.8. You see the blurred background. It is soft and not in focus. This is because the area of focus is shallow and the trees in the background are outside of the plane of focus.
Deep depth of field: My aperture was f/11. If you compare this picture to the image on the left, there is a deeper area in focus in this image. The area in focus includes the owl as well as the trees in the background. Those trees have much more detail than the ones in the image on the left.
Here are 5 ways to create a shallow depth of field in your photos
Use an aperture that is f/4.0 or less.
Move your subject away from the background (trees, walls, buildings). The further they are away from the background the more blur and out of focus to the background.
Move closer to your subject. The closer your camera is to your subject, the shallower the depth of field (more blur in the background)
Choose a lens with a longer focal length. Taking pictures at focal lengths of 85mm and higher will create more compression to your picture. A picture taken with a focal length of 135mm will have a background that is softer and more spread out than a picture taken with a 50mm lens.
Add layers to the composition of your image. If you are able to include relevant elements into the foreground of your image, they will help to add depth perspective to your image. If you look at the following pictures, I used the trees and shot between the evergreen’s branches. This gave me elements in the background and the foreground, thus adding dimension and layers to my image.
This image was shot with a focal length of 135mm and f/2.2. I was standing the same distance as the one shot with the 50mm lens (next picture). This softens the background and the foreground and gives the image a dreamy feel.
This image was shot with a focal length of 50mm and f/2.2 (the aperture as the image shot with 135mm lens). Even though the two images have the same aperture, and I was standing the same distance from the owl, this image will have more detail and the background will not be as compressed.