# I can't get a blurred background



## AndyH (Sep 17, 2010)

I've tried several settings but I can't get my camera to blur the background. I just took a picture and I used f/2.7, 1/100 shutter, iso 100, focal length 5mm, metering mode = pattern. To me the background looks as sharp as the subject! What am I doing wrong?


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## Destin (Sep 17, 2010)

For one, try zooming in farther. More zoom=more bokeh. Also, you want the background as far away from the subject as possible....


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## peanut170 (Sep 17, 2010)

Is the subject seperated from the background a decent ways......post the pic.


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## Counterpoint (Sep 17, 2010)

Your focal length is 5mm? 

Depth of field is not only controlled by aperture.

How far away from the camera is your subject? How far is the background?

A sample image would help diagnose the problem.


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## Flash Harry (Sep 17, 2010)

use a longer focal length or get closer to the subject, standing too far away regardless of the aperture will not separate the subject from the background in the way you mean and I'm hoping you have the focal length messed up there, 5mm is awful wide angle for the type of shot you're going for. H

PS. by the way the last line was a jest


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## Derrel (Sep 17, 2010)

One of the best/worst issues of small-sensor cameras is excessive depth of field...using a point and shoot camera, depth of field is quite deep at most focal lengths.


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## AndyH (Sep 17, 2010)

haha! I knew I was doing something wrong! I was about 8 feet away from subject and subject was about 15 feet away from background. I wasn't zoomed in any. here is the original unedited pic. I have an edited pic where I cropped my son out of the background! lol!


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## kundalini (Sep 17, 2010)

Flash Harry said:


> PS. by the way the last line was a jest


 Are you feeling a need to self-censor now that you've posted such a long and inspirational reply this week?  Don't be a poser.  You is what you is, a leopard doesn't change it's spots.


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## AndyH (Sep 17, 2010)

I don't understand one thing though. I f I get closer or zoom in, I wouldn't be able to get all of her (head to toe) in the shot. Would I?


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 17, 2010)

Switch the scene to portrait and pray it will work


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## reznap (Sep 17, 2010)

Well, yeah if you get closer or zoom in you won't be able to get her in the shot - you have to step back and zoom in.

You're very limited with that camera... but increasing the focal length (zooming in) is really your only option.

So, take however many steps back, zoom in, go back further, maybe 50 ft... til she's in the frame.  Also it'll help to have a lot of open space behind her and a distant background.

If you feel like reading a little on depth of field, I found this pretty interesting:  Understanding Depth of Field in Photography


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## AndyH (Sep 17, 2010)

I had it on portrait. I also tried on aperture priority and it didn't work.


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 17, 2010)

you have to be super close. Try only her head for now.  Or buy a DSLR.


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## Derrel (Sep 17, 2010)

You can zoom in and back up all you want to--and the background will STILL be in focus. Why???????????

With your camera's tiny sensor, at any distance where you get a full-length woman in,m the tiny sensor's lens will be very close to, or at, or past the hyperfocal distance, given the diminutive size of your P&S's sensor...at ANY focal length available on that particular P&S camera.

You are being given incorrect technical advice by the majority of people here.


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 17, 2010)

Derrel said:


> You are being given incorrect technical advice by the majority of people here.


 
Have you every googled your symptoms when you are sick or when your kids are sick?  Scary google results! LOL


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## Gaerek (Sep 17, 2010)

Counterpoint said:


> Your focal length is 5mm?



P&S camera with tiny sensor. That 5mm is probably like somewhere around 30mm equivalent.

It's SUPER hard to get a nice blurred background with a P&S camera. If that's what you want, your best bet is to go buy a DSLR.


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## tkruf (Sep 17, 2010)

Derrel is right. P&S cameras do not do depth of field very well.  You'll have to fake it, which usually bring poor results, get a digital SLR, or live with what you get from your P&S.


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 17, 2010)

Im still positive though if you only take her head and maybe some of her body, you can blur out the background.


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## AndyH (Sep 17, 2010)

Schwettylens said:


> Im still positive though if you only take her head and maybe some of her body, you can blur out the background.



Ok cool, I'll give that a try. I would like to take pics like this







That is from my uncle's dslr camera. Is it possible to even get close to that with my P&S?


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 17, 2010)

the house on that shot is way farther than the house on your first shot.. But yeah, you need to get really close but the background far away.


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## kundalini (Sep 17, 2010)

AndyH said:


> That is from my uncle's dslr camera. Is it possible to even get close to that with my P&S?


 Probably not so likely with a P&S.  But close enough might be attainable.  Depends on your standards.  It's purely a matter of physics.  The P&S sensor is the dog of the bunch.  Nothing wrong with that, but you need to know these things.


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## loosecanon (Sep 17, 2010)

Go here and you will see your DOF for your camera.

At the settings you noted, the DOF is 4.6ft in front of the subject and infinity in back. If you zoom in to 50mm  and step back to say 15 ft so you can frame the subject  your DOF will be 0.37ft in front and 0.39ft in back, this would give you a nice bokeh but would make it a challenge to get the subject in focus.


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## Abby Rose (Sep 17, 2010)

I have that same camera (I thought I was the only one here!  Glad to find another one of us H50 users...) and this for me is one of its most annoying shortcomings. I find that if I zoom all the way in and use a wide aperture (which yeah, is what everyone has been telling you - Also, press the macro button which seems to help a little), I get my best results but it's usually not really comparable to what I see from DSLRs and such. Especially with people and large animals/objects. Smaller subjects seem to work better, like this one of a rooster: 

Involved | Flickr - Photo Sharing!. 

This is probably the best I can get, which isn't bad but he is a lot smaller than a human. And notice it's just his head - I couldn't have gotten the background as out of focus if it was his whole body. I was not all the close to him, though - a good twenty feet, perhaps? Not zoomed in all the way, I don't think, but it was a fair amount. The background was maybe 4 -6 feet behind him. I've tried using my whole self as a practice model and using some trees - several acres away - to do the same thing with the background but I just can't get it. 

Good luck. Yay for Sony H50.


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## Irishwake (Sep 17, 2010)

Heh, I have a H20 as my P+S counterpart and trying to get blurred backgrounds that don't detract from the photos is a pain. The minimum focal length on my camera is 38mm. I tried for so long and what seems to be the biggest problem is the focus. You can line up all you want but God forbid you actually want to focus on something other than what your camera thinks is the main focus..

It's workable, it just takes a lot more time in planning and fiddling with the controls. Just keep the aperture as open as it'll go and stand as close as you can to get as much of "her" as you can. 

Pretty much just repeating what everyone else has been telling you but, having a very similar camera, I feel your pain.


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## enzodm (Sep 18, 2010)

This is one of the reasons why I switched from P&S to DSLR avoiding bridge camera, which have the same sensors as P&S (see Derrel comment on sensor and following). You may obtain some blurring in specific conditions, but never at the same level. 
(and if you need other reasons to justify the expense : less noise in low light, much quicker shots, more pictures with battery).


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## Sw1tchFX (Sep 18, 2010)

i say get a view camera if you want shallow depth of field, that's how Avedon did it, that's how america did it, and it's worked out well so far


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## mrmacedonian (Sep 18, 2010)

Sw1tchFX said:


> ...that's how Avedon did it, that's how america did it, and it's worked out well so far





:thumbup:


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## bazooka (Sep 18, 2010)

Small correction... focal length does not affect DOF. Try it. Zoom in on an out of focus area while looking through the viewfinder. Does the bokeh change? No, it only fills more of the frame. Using a longer FL *compresses* the bokeh against the subject so you see a smaller area of it, causing a perceived increase in bokeh, but technically, it does not change it in any way.


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 18, 2010)

bazooka, use DOF calculator.  As you can see, the mm affects the DOF.

Online Depth of Field Calculator


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## vtf (Sep 18, 2010)

If you know how to post process blurring can be done there.


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## Destin (Sep 18, 2010)

AndyH said:


> I had it on portrait. I also tried on aperture priority and it didn't work.



He meant turn the camera to portrait orientation, aka vertical, to fit her in the frame as you zoom in more....


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 18, 2010)

Destin said:


> AndyH said:
> 
> 
> > I had it on portrait. I also tried on aperture priority and it didn't work.
> ...


 
No, I did mean the portrait setting and get realll close.


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## Gaerek (Sep 18, 2010)

Schwettylens said:


> bazooka, use DOF calculator.  As you can see, the mm affects the DOF.
> 
> Online Depth of Field Calculator



There was a lengthy thread several months ago regarding this. If subject distance doesn't change, then focal length affects the DoF. However, if you increase the subject distance in order to increase the focal length and keep approximately the same field of few, the DoF doesn't change. In your DoF calculator, put these values in:

First:
Focal length: 50mm
Subject distance: 20ft

Next:
Focal length: 100mm
Subject distance: 40 ft

This effectively gives you the same field of view for the increased focal length. Compare the DoF in both of those. You'll notice they're very close to the same. There are a couple of affects that make it appear blurrier at longer focal length, given the same field of view, but the DoF should be about the same.

Now, if you're talking about going from a full body shot, to say a head shot, keeping subject distance the same, then you are correct. But assuming you want to keep that full body shot, increasing the focal length simply won't work.


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## bazooka (Sep 18, 2010)

Schwettylens said:


> bazooka, use DOF calculator. As you can see, the mm affects the DOF.
> 
> Online Depth of Field Calculator


 
I am recognizing a teachable moment!  So help me to understand why zooming in on a blurred background doesn't cause the bokeh to have a larger radius around the specular highlight? According to the calculator, the background should be getting further out of focus (assuming everything else stays the same), thereby making the bokeh physically larger, and/or blur to become more blurry. In practice, I've never seen this happen. The aforementioned statement came from a book I read, but I'm not home so I can't quote it at the moment.

Or are DoF (distance front to back of the in-focus 'area') and amount of blur (area outside of the DoF) determined by different rules?

Gah, I'm stuck at work with nothing to do... I knew I should have brought my camera to do some experimentation!


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## Robin Usagani (Sep 18, 2010)

I think it is just to determine how deep the field that are in focus.  OUtside of that will be blurred.  How much it is blurred.. im not really sure.  I am still learning .  I think it is mostly depend on how far the background is and what lens you are using.


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## itf (Sep 18, 2010)

photoshop? :O


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## bazooka (Sep 18, 2010)

Reading through Understanding Depth of Field in Photography ...

I think I understand, but not really.    Like Gaerek said, if you keep the subject composed the same and change your FL (moving the camera closer or further away) will not change the DoF, as long as the subject is composed in the frame the same way.  The calculator supports this.

But if I zoom into a ruler where I focus on a certain mark, the neighboring marks which were once in focus, will become more blurry because they are being magnified.  I guess this does equate to a change in depth of field.  I'll have to re-read that part of the book I guess... because it looks like I got it wrong.

I did learn something new from that article.... as you get past 50mm... the depth of field front/back relationship approaches 1:1.  2:3 relationship only exists at shorter FL's.  So at 200mm, you will have almost just as much in focus in front of the subject as behind.


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## Taylor510ce (Sep 18, 2010)

stand back further and zoom in. You probably still won't see a lot of blur using a P&S. Basically you need the subject to be as far from the background as possible yet closest to your camera as possible ( or zoom in on the subject from further back with the background still far behind. )

If thinking of upgrading to a dSLR, you won't have as much trouble getting background blur as with a P&S.


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## djacobox372 (Sep 18, 2010)

AndyH said:


> I don't understand one thing though. I f I get closer or zoom in, I wouldn't be able to get all of her (head to toe) in the shot. Would I?



Narrow depth of field is a product of longer focal lengths  and larger (smaller number) apertures.

Your cameras sensor is too small to achieve the blurred background look.

Most point and shoot cameras have this problem with this because they have very small sensors, which means the image is cropped really tightly--making the usable focal lengths very short (they need wide-angle lenses because they're cropping so much).

Here's an online dof calculator: Online Depth of Field Calculator

A 5mm lens at f2.7 shooting at a subject 10 feet away gives a near infinite focal range (1.3 feet to infinity). 

If you increase the focal length (zoom in) you'll also need to increase the distance to the subject (back up) which will negate the benefits of zooming in.


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## djacobox372 (Sep 18, 2010)

Taylor510ce said:


> stand back further and zoom in. You probably still won't see a lot of blur using a P&S. Basically you need the subject to be as far from the background as possible *yet closest to your camera as possible* ( or zoom in on the subject from further back with the background still far behind. )
> 
> If thinking of upgrading to a dSLR, you won't have as much trouble getting background blur as with a P&S.



Backup up won't help as you are just trading one problem (short focal length) with another (long subject distance).

He can't achieve this look with his camera.  But on the bright side, he never has to worry about missing focus.  <-- something that many new DSLR owners struggle with


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