it’s all a blur

To be completely honest with you, I’ve been a bit hesitant to post this How the heck do you get the backgrounds in your photos so blurry, MckMama? post. You see, if the number of times I’ve been asked that question is any indication, blurry backgrounds are the Holy MckGrail. More times than I can count on all the fingers and toes in our household, I’ve been asked about blurry backgrounds in the comments on my blog, via Twitter, in emails and on the street (Okay, okay, no one has asked me on the street. Mostly on the street people say, “Are all those kids yours?” or “Excuse me, Ma’am, I think one of your children dropped some…what is that? Woodland creature food!?”). And with all the times I’ve been asked, I can’t help but to have wondered to myself, “Self, if you actually post how you get those backgrounds, will people even come back for more? Once they’ve acquired the Holy MckGrail, what will make them return to your blog?”

Actually, that entire paragraph is a total lie. I haven’t really been hesitant for that reason. But it sounded good, didn’t it? To be honest, I’ve been dragging my feet with this post because I wanted to really do it justice. And that took research and time, screen shots and links. And between posting other drivel on my blog, rearing four children shorter than our bookcase, researching what it would take to powerwash and stain our deck ourselves this summer, coming up with baby names to push on suggest to my sister and creating a variety of culinary concoctions out of couscous, beans and cilantro…I just plain haven’t had time.

But, since you all are daily gifts to me, I thought the least I could do was offer a small Memorial Day gift to all of you lovely people. I present to you the long awaited, multi faceted blurry background post. I love blurry backgrounds. The blurrier the better. Seriously.

I have broken down this explanation about getting blurry backgrounds into three parts. Depending on your camera and editing software, you can use just one of these techniques, or more than one.

Or you can just admire this photograph of my flower boxes.

But first, if you want to understand blurry backgrounds and how they even come to be, you’ll want to understand aperture. For an excellent explanation of aperture and depth of field, an understanding of which can help you create blurry backgrounds in your photos, read this excellent bit.

And now, the three techniques I was talking about earlier. You know, five seconds ago.

Getting a blurry background using the settings on your camera.

You can skip this section if you have a point and shoot camera. I don’t think achieving a truly blurred background is possible by just adjusting the settings on that kind of camera. Or, if it is, I don’t know how. Sorry. Feel free to skip ahead, unless you do see the Av/A modes I’ll mention below on your camera. If you do, go ahead and give this a shot. I just can’t promise results with this technique using a point and shoot.

If you have an SLR (digital or film) and you want the background of your photograph to be just a blur, you’re in luck. Just set your camera (using the dial on the top) to Av (for Canon) or A (for Nikon) mode. The Av/A mode determines how much, in depth, of your photograph will be in focus. While shooting in this mode, your camera, smart thing that it is, will adjust itself in other ways, such as shutter speed, to help this be achieved.

Once you are in Av/A mode, you’ll want to adjust the f number. The f number is how aperture is indicated on SLR cameras. The higher the f number, the more of your photo that will be in focus. So, for example, if you were taking a photo of your two children in the yard and one was closer to you than the other, chances are you’d want them both to be sharp and in focus. In that instance, you’d want to set your camera’s f number, or aperture, to a large number like f/11 or something.

On the other hand, if you are wanting an artsy shot the likes of which I prefer to take, with some part of the photo in crisp, sensational focus while other parts fade into a lovely blur of color, you will want to set your f value to something much lower, say f/4. Depending on which lens you have on your camera, you may be able to get to a lower f value. How low you can go depends on the specific lens you are using, not on your camera. More on lenses later. For now, whatever lens you are using, try going to the lowest f value possible for a blurred background.

I took this photograph of Big Mac at the farm on Saturday with my Canon 40D (I also have a Canon Rebel XTi that I shot with exclusively for ages before I upgraded. My Rebel serves me well as a backup camera now. I highly, highly recommend both cameras). For this shot, I set my camera, while in Av mode, to f/2.5 and had an exposure time of 1/3,200.

But, MckMama, how exactly do I change the f value on my camera? I’m so very glad you asked.

Once you are in Av/A mode, you can change the f number with the dial above the shutter button. At least this is how it works for Canon digital cameras. You may need to refer to your manual to find out how to change the f stop for your specific brand of camera. By rotating the dial to the left, the f value will get smaller. This is what you want for a blurred background photo.

You can see what aperture your digital camera is set at by looking at the back LCD screen for an f number. You’ll probably see a “/” after the f and then a number. That is the f value, or aperture, your camera is currently set at.

When the f number is small, the inside of the lens is actually wide open. So if I were to get really bossy and tell you that you need to open your lens more, what I would want for you to do would be to lower your aperture or f number. Alternatively, if your aperture is a large number like f/22, then the inside of your lens is smaller or more closed. This often causes much confusion with beginning photographers. And with women who have had four children in the past four years and are trying to keep up with a blog while caring for said children and putting steel cut oats on the table each morning while washing her hands with goat milk soap, not forgetting to buy groceries and tending to her lumberjack husband.

Not like I’d know anything about all that.

In summary, opening your lens more happens when you lower the f number. A higher f number is a more closed lens.

Clear as mud? Good. I aim to please.

And now, shoot away! Focus on something close up, and let the background fade away. Or just let me and I my incessant talk about cameras and f stops fade away. Whichever you’d prefer. Really.

Getting a blurry background using specific lenses.

If you are not able to get a dramatic enough effect for your taste using that first technique, you may want to invest in a new lens that will help you achieve the oh so coveted blurry backgrounds. Again, this is for SLR shooters only. You can’t change the lens on a point and shoot. And if you tried, I am fairly certain your camera wouldn’t work after that.

Far and away the best bang for your buck, in my humble opinion, is going to come from the petite, lightweight, and relatively affordable Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens. You can get your hands on one for under $100 and you will not be sorry with what you get. It’s a small lens that packs a big punch. It’s aperture capabilities go all the way down to f/1.8, meaning you can get a crisp focus plus a nicely blurred background. Even in low light! I use this lens for many of my photographs, especially the ones I take indoors.

Use the same directions above for lowering your f value while in Av/A mode. The use of this lens, as opposed to just using the standard one that probably came with your camera, will give you some spectacular results. Be warned, however. This is a prime lens. It’s focal length is fixed and you can not zoom in or out. You’ll have to physically move your body closer to or farther away from the subject. But you’ll get used to it and find your rhythm.

If you really want to bring in the big guns, you could always look up a place online that rents lenses and have a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 II USM lens sent to you for a week. You will cry tears of agony and despair when you have to return it, but you’ll have a week’s worth of rock solid photos to hold onto for a lifetime. This lens is much bigger and bulkier than the 50mm, but it is well worth toting around. The premier portrait lens, in my opinion, it can take the aperture down to f/1.2, meaning you’ll get better shooting in lower light, an ability to capture action shots like children jumping on a trampoline, and a sensational capacity for blurring the heck out of the background.

After yearning and saving for literally over a year, I finally shopped around for the best deal and then purchased this lens for myself. I rent it no longer. It was well worth the wait and most of the photographs of our MSC’s faces on my blog since the end of February were taken using this phenomenal lens. Oh, and I also use it in my professional photo shoots. You know, the ones that really justified spending that kind of dough on photography equipment.

Using a Canon lens like one of these with your SLR and shooting in Av/A mode like I described above will give you stellar results! And Canon isn’t even giving me one red cent to say that. Actually, as far as I know, Canon doesn’t know I exist. I just worship Canon from afar. Though I really think they ought to sponsor my blog. If they sponsored things like blogs. Which they probably don’t.

I digress.

Getting a blurry background in post production via photo editing software.

If you have a point and shoot camera and can’t get blurred backgrounds with it, or if you have an SLR but still want to pump up the blurriness or even achieve a selected blurriness, then post production is for you.

I use Photoshop (although, as I mentioned, I did get Adobe Lightroom as a gift recently and someday, when my life slows down, I am going to use it because I hear that it is Photoshop on crack) and Photoshop Elements for editing. They come highly recommend by me (Again, not getting paid to say that. Darn!!), but perhaps your photo editing software has similar features.

I will, however, show you how to get a blurred background look using Photoshop Elements.

You’re welcome. Again, don’t forget that my door mailbox is always open to receive gifts of gratitude (Hint. Cheesecake. Cough.) for sharing my photographic, ahem, prowess with you. Actually, I just taught Photoshop to myself. All of the people out there who actually teach Photoshop at local community colleges are probably rolling over in their graves at my explanation of Photoshop. You know, if they were dead. Which they probably aren’t. Since they are teaching college courses and all. Although some of my professors back in the day…

Okay. Mercy! I’ll stop.

Open a photo in Photoshop. If you don’t know how to do this, you’re probably not going to know how to do the rest of what I’m about to tell you. So why don’t you just turn off your computer and go have a glass of lemonade and a brownie. Have some for me while you’re at it.

For the rest of you? Look at your photo and decide which part(s) you’d like to be blurred. I chose this photo of me about to parafly off a mountain in Austria the year before I got married because a) why not, it’s kind of a fun photo and b) it is mostly in focus from the foreground to the background, making it a good example for me to illustrate this technique on.

Wasn’t I cute? About to plummet to my certain doom. I was petrified, although the look on my face here belies that. I am afraid of heights and if it weren’t for the fact that all my friends were doing it, I would not have gone paraflying that day. Turns out that it rocked my free world, though, and I was really glad that I did it.

What’s that? This post is not about me? Nor should I be partaking in a walk down memory lane? Sorry, Charlie. My blog. My rules.

I also had a pet guinea pig named Chipper when I was little. So there. Me, me, me.

Ahem. Back to blurry backgrounds. Use the lasso selection tool to select the part of the photograph that you want to keep in focus. It will be best to set the feather value to between 50 and 100.

After you have selected it, click on inverse, in the select drop down menu. Like this:

Presto! The opposite of what you selected is now selected. Is your brain bleeding yet? This is the selection that you want to make blurry. So go to filter at the top menu and drop down to blur. Then over to gaussian blur.

You’ll get a little box with a tab that you can drag to the right or the left to make the background as blurry as you choose.

When you have reached your desired level of blurriness, hit ok and voila!

Blurry background! Okay, so this photo actually looks kind of silly with the blur around me evenly. I was just trying to teach you the technique. You’ll have to play around with which parts of your own photos to blur to get the look you want.

But while you play around, I’m outta here. That post took more work than I bet it did to write War and Peace. I even went to the effort of creating a discussion about blurry backgrounds in my community. Now I’m exhausted, and I swear (except I really don’t) that I am not going to do another photography post for 47 more years.

So, I hope you liked this one.