If you take two pictures in identical circumstances, you can take one with the shutter wide open and a quick shutter speed and you can take the other picture with the shutter open a very little bit and for a longer shutter speed. Controlling the aperture is what will get you that blurry effect you're looking for, but understand that it needs to be paired with the appropriate shutter speed.
Most digital cameras nowadays have two sets of settings: one set consists of little icons and the second set have letters such as Tv and Av. Tv allows you to control the shutter speed and Av allows you to control the aperture. You will only control one element and the camera will adjust accordingly to balance lighting with the other element.
First, the subject that you want to be in focus should be fairly close to you (within 5') and the background you want to be blurry should be at least 10' behind the subject.
Select the Av setting and you should see an "F" followed by a number such as 2.8, 3.2, 4.0, 6.3, 8.0, etc. Select the lowest number you can, zoom in as far as your zoom will allow, focus on your subject, and check the shutter speed displayed. In general, you don't want to have a shutter speed any slower than 1/60th to avoid your subject being blurry, but if you have a steady hand, you may be able to get away with 1/30th.
By the way, use this technique when there's enough natural light and you don't need flash. Flash won't reach far enough to light up your background, so the background may be blurry, but you won't be able to see it!
No comments:
Post a Comment