Fantastic Tips To Help You Blur The Background Of Your Photos

Have you ever looked at a pho­to and won­dered how the pho­tog­ra­ph­er is able to blur the back­ground of the pho­to? It’s not as hard as you think to blur the back­ground in your own images. The blur of the back­ground is all about aper­ture and depth of field, and I am going to teach you how you can use the two to blur the back­ground of your next shot. 

First, let’s talk about what exact­ly makes the blur in the back­ground of a pho­to. It real­ly comes down to two things—aper­ture and depth of field.

How Aperture Helps Blur The Background Of Your Photos

I believe that aper­ture is where pho­to­graph­ic mag­ic hap­pens. It adds dimen­sion and light to your pho­to­graph, and it’s not as dif­fi­cult as it may seem to master. 

You want to remem­ber that aper­ture is more about your lens than your cam­era, and not all lens­es let you get a fan­tas­tic blur of the background. 

If you want to dis­cov­er the right lens for you, I go into more detail about lens­es here. 

I am a por­trait pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and I love the blur of the back­ground, so the aper­ture is ALWAYS the first set­ting I set on my cam­era. I know that I want the sub­ject to be crisp, clear, and “pop”, and I like the back­ground blur. 

Remem­ber to think of your lens in terms of an eye. The aper­ture is like the pupil. Aper­ture is the hole in which light enters the cam­era, and the lens on your cam­era will deter­mine the aper­ture range you can shoot. 

You see an “f” and then a num­ber when look­ing in your cam­era. This “f” and num­ber is telling you your aper­ture, or f stop. 

The low­er the num­ber, the big­ger the hole, the more light that comes in, result­ing in only a small por­tion of your pho­to being in focus. This is what helps you achieve those pic­tures with a blur­ry back­ground. Shoot­ing a larg­er aperture—F1.8–2.5 means more light will come into the cam­era, and there will be less focus in your photo. 

Shoot­ing a low­er aper­ture-F16-22 means less light will come in and more focus, less blur of the back­ground. This is often con­fus­ing to pho­tog­ra­phers just start­ing in man­u­al. Keep in mind that the small­er the num­ber, the big­ger the hole, the big­ger the num­ber, the small­er the hole.

If you want to cre­ate blur in the back­ground of your pho­to, you want to use a wider aperture‑a small­er num­ber. This is per­fect if you’re going to take a pic­ture of a flower and want the back­ground blurred. A pho­to of a baby’s feet, and you want the rest out of focus, or if you sim­ply want to make your sub­ject “pop.”

Aper­ture isn’t the only thing that will help you achieve the blur of the back­ground in your shot. You also need to con­sid­er the depth of field.

How Depth of Field Helps Blur The Background Of Your Photos

The def­i­n­i­tion of Depth of Field is the “dis­tance between the near­est and the far­thest objects that are accept­able sharp focus in an image.”

Many things con­trol your depth of field-The aper­ture you have cho­sen, the dis­tance between your lens and the sub­ject, the dis­tance between your sub­ject and the back­ground, the focal length of your lens, and oth­er things. 

I am a por­trait pho­tog­ra­ph­er. I want the sub­ject to stand out, to pop. I want the view­er’s eye to go direct­ly to the sub­ject and the back­ground to fade away. There­fore, I often cre­ate a shal­low DoF in my pho­tos, which helps blur the back­ground in my photos. 

Shal­low DoF is used to make the back­ground dis­ap­pear. It’s per­fect when you don’t want your view­er to see a car in the back­ground, a mess in your kitchen, or what­ev­er it may be.

How To Achieve A Shallow Depth of Field

When cre­at­ing a shal­low DoF, you want to make sure there is a large space between your sub­ject and the back­ground. It does­n’t mat­ter if it’s a bush, a brick wall or a back­drop; pull your sub­ject away from it, and get in close to your sub­ject while keep­ing in mind composition. 

Oth­er things give you that dreamy blur of the back­ground in your pho­tos, but com­bin­ing a wider aper­ture and a shal­low depth of field will help you begin to cre­ate it; I hope these tips help you get start­ed with your photos!

If you want to learn even more about aper­ture and depth of field, check out my Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essen­tials classes!