Digital Portrait Photography
How to Blur Backgrounds

This digital portrait photography technique will help make your portraits look more professional. Have you ever noticed that in many portraits taken by professional photographers the background is out of focus? This small detail can make a big difference in your portrait photography. Let's look at how to achieve this effect.

When you take pictures of people sometimes you may not want the background to distract you from the person's face. There are three main factors you need to consider aperture, focal length, and the distance between the subject and lens.

Aperture

The easiest way to adjust your aperture on most DSLR cameras is to set it to aperture priority mode. This is a partially automatic setting. You can adjust the aperture manually and the camera will choose the appropriate shutter speed so you'll get a good exposure.

The aperture controls the amount of light that enters your camera lens and reaches the senor. When the aperture is just a small opening you're picture will have a wide depth of field. Everything in the picture will be in focus. When the aperture is open wide your picture will have a shallow depth of field. The background will be out of focus.

The aperture is measured in f-stops or f-numbers. The larger the f-stop is the larger the depth of field. The smaller the f-stop is the smaller the depth of field. For example an f-stop of f/2.5 will have a much shallower depth of field than an f-stop of f/22.

When you take your picture set you aperture to a low f-stop to decrease the depth of field.

Focal Length

The second digital portrait photography tip that you need to consider to get a blurred background is focal length. A lens with a shorter focal length will get more of what is in the picture in focus than a lens with a longer focal length.

If you have an 18mm lens it will capture more of the background in focus than a 55mm lens. 85-135mm lenses are usually considered good portrait lenses.

If you have a zoom lens you should use it to zoom into the subject. As you do you'll see that the background gets thrown out of focus.

Distance for Subject

The distance you are from your subject will also affect how clear the background is. If you stand with your subject too far away your camera will end up putting everything around it in focus. Stand with your subject about 10 feet away from you. The closer you are the shallower depth of field you will get, but you also have to be mindful of your subject's comfort level. Most people can't deal with a camera being too close to them.

When to Blur the Background

Blurring the background isn't only a great technique to use in digital portrait photography. It can be used when you want to isolate any subject in a picture.

Use this technique when the background distracts from the picture. If the background is too cluttered or simply doesn't add to the story you are trying to tell go ahead and blur the background.

There are times when the objects around your subject will contribute to the story you're trying to tell though. Be mindful of what's going on in the background and foreground of the picture before you take it and make the appropriate decision about what to do about the background.

If you like these digital portrait photography tips check out our other digital photography tutorials.