How to Blur the Background With a Digital SLR

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Steve Anthony, I'm a professional photographer with SteveAnthonyStudios.com. This clip I'm going to show you how to blur the background with a digital SLR. Now blurring the background is basically a function of depth of field, and what that basically means is the distance in your frame of the subject that's in focus. So if you, for example, if you have a shallow depth of field, there is the front of the image, the images in the foreground are in focus, the images in the background are out of focus. There are ways that you can make sure that this happens. Now all you need for this is, a camera, but it has to be able to function either in manual mode or in Aperture Priority Mode. What you need to do is, to set your camera in manual mode, or if you don't have manual mode, you may have an Aperture Priority Automatic mode. What that enables you to do is, set your camera aperture, in this case it's the number next to the F. And as you can see, it's right now set at 1.8, you can set it to whatever F-Stop is necessary. But the smaller the F-Stop, excuse me, the smaller the number which equals to the larger F-Stop, I know that's confusing. But basically, think of it in these terms, the lower the number you have for an F-Stop, the more likely you are to blur the background. Now make sure when you're using your shallow depth of field in order to blur the background that you're using a shutter speed that's appropriate for the aperture. Your camera will probably set it for you, if you're in Aperture Priority Automatic mode. But if you're in manual, you're going to have to select the shutter speed yourself, as well. Once again, this has been Steve Anthony, thanks for watching."