markyg said:
I`ve noticed a lot of photos on the forum where the main subject is highly in focus but the background is out of focus. I tried to do this this morning but I suspect my camera (Fuji FinePix A101) isn`t up to the job. Is it a camera effect or is there someway to pull this off?
Cheers as per!!
WHat you need to read up on is "depth of field". Basically, the area of aceptably sharp focus behind and in-front of the object you have actually focused upon. This changes with focal length and aperture. If you're using an automatic camera, you may have little control over this.
Basically assuming a standard 50mm lens is used on a 35mm camera, to obtain the effect you describe, you need to shoot at a wide aperture.. say F2.8. If you closed the aperture down to say f22, then the blurred background will be much sharper. On a manual camera, you would also have to adjust the shutter speed to compensate.
To fully learn how to use depth of field, you need to learn about reciprocity law. Ok.. don;t panic.. this is easy... a diagram will help.
Now... look at that table.. you will see apertures down the left, and shutter speeds down the right. Notice something? As the aperture gets wider (lower f number) the shutter speed gets faster! This is the reciprocity, or relationship between aperture and shutter speed. 1/1000th of a second at f2.8 is the same as 1/8th of a second at f22. The same amount of light reaches the film, or chip... the exposure is the same!! So why have the ability to control these two things independantly? For control over things like depth of field, that's why.
As stated earlier, a wide aperture (low number) gives shallow depth of field... your background will be blurred, and a small aperture (high f number) will give a deep depth of field.. sharp background. Howerver, you cant just choose a f number at random, as your exposure has to be correct. If you knew that your correct exposure should be 1/30th at f16, then if you want to shoot at f2.8, you just work it out....
1/30th at f16
1/60th at f11
1/125th at f8
1/250th at f5.6
1/500th at f4
1/1000th at f2.8
You need to increase your shutter speed by 5 stops, and you open up the lens by 5 stops... one balances the other.... The Reciprocity law. The exposure will be identical for all those combinations, but your depth of field will change dramatically.
Other things effect depth of field too. Focal length primarily. Long lenses have inherently shallow depth of field, even when stopped down to max, whereas wide lenses, such as a 18mm on a 35mm camera, has depth of field so deep when opened up, that you hardly even need to focus... so to get the effect you describe, a long lens, with a wide aperture would have been used.
Having a manual camera, or at least manual control over your camera is pretty essential for this. Cameras that allow you to adjust the aperture and then the camera adjust the shutter to match are called aperture priority auto cameras, and lots of auto cameras allow this too.. you need at least this latter option to have full control over depth of field.
Hope I haven't confused you too much.