# Achieving unfocused background with Olympus Digital cam?



## tinkerbell50404 (Jul 5, 2006)

Hello, I have a digital Olympus SP-500 UZ and I am going to be using it for portrait photography.  

I would like to capture a sharp image of the subject, with the background out of focus.  

I ordered the Conversion lens adapter CLA-4 to be able to attach a lens for this.  

I have 2 questions for you-
1- I saw that the only lens Olympus carries is "Telephoto lens TCON-17."   I know this is for magnifiying things from a far.  Would this product be able to capture a close subject sharply with a blurred background?

If not, does the Conversion lens adapter CLA-4 attach to any other lenses besides this one?  Preferably a 200mm lens. Do other brand lenses attach to this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## bethany138 (Jul 5, 2006)

Does your camera have a portrait setting?  Usually a little picture of a head?  Or a macro setting might work also - a little flower usually.  Tho either of these should give you decent background blur (also called - Short Depth of Field and Bokeh), neither will give you the extremes you would be able to accomplish with a professional SLR and a fast lens.  Just so you don't get your hopes up.

Also - this is caused by a wide aperture...in case you want to look it up somewhere.


b


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## JonathanM (Jul 6, 2006)

What you are referring to is called depth of field, that is the area of focus that you use to capture something sharply, while leaving foreground 7 background out of focus. It is controlled by aperture, so IIRC your camera doesn't have a changeable lens, your adaptor simply provides greater magnification.

it should have though on the camera an aperture priority mode, and quite simply to achive the effect you are after, use a large aperture (that is a small "f" number). the lerger the aperture, the smaller the depth of focus. As your lens has an aperture of f2.8, that is the setting to use. But be aware, your tele phoyo converter may alter the effects.


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## gundy74 (Jul 6, 2006)

tinkerbell, if your camera has an aperature priority mode, then you should be able to widen up the aperature (low f/ number) to focus only on the foreground.


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## R.Robbins (Jul 7, 2006)

I have to agree the tele adapters alter the image, sometimes effecting overall sharpnedd pretty bad also becareful with the adpter lenses , I dont know about olympus but on my fujifilm it was a metal adapter tube mounting to plastic camera body and it broke a few times before I gave up on using the lenses all together


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## Big Mike (Jul 7, 2006)

Johnathan is correct.  To achieve this, you should use the biggest aperture that you can...F2.8   If you have an aperture priority mode, use it.

There are also other things you can do, to make the background look more out of focus.  Have the subject as far away from the background as possible.  Use the longest zoom your lens will allow and while at the same time, get as close as possible to your subject.  Depending on your camera, you may be able to use macro mode for portraits.

Unfortunately, your camera has a very small sensor...compared to a DSLR camera or 35mm film etc.  This makes it harder for you to get a shallow DOF.  

I wouldn't bother with the telephoto adapter, as mentioned, they are usually not very good for image quality.


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