Day Five: How To Make the Background Blurry

Today's lesson in the 31 Days to a Better Photo begins to tell me about aperature. Aperature means the opening of the lens. It is measured in stops, called f-stops. The larger the number, the smaller the opening of the lens. A f/1.2 is a lens has a big opening so it allows more light in, and requires less time to get the exposure right. It also gives you a shallow depth of field. A f/16 lens has a small opening which lets less light in, and requires more time to the get the exposure. But, it also gives you a deeper depth of field.

The depth of field is the depth of the portion of the photo that will be in focus. It's what makes your kids in a picture appear in focus, while the rest of your picture is blurry, without having to edit it with software.

The tip is the lower the aperature, the wider the aperature, but the shallower the depth of field.

Examples:

f/3.5 1/20s ISO800

f/6.3 1/20s ISO 800

f/6.3 1/20s ISO 1600

Lens: Canon 18-55mm f/3.5

In the first photo, the aperature is wide and the focal point is shallow. That means the candles are in focus and the background is blurry. The second photo shows more clarity in the background because the depth of field is deeper, but it's dark. That's because the opening is smaller, so less light is getting in. The third photo has the same f-stop, but I changed my ISO to allow more light in. I could have also slowed my shutter speed.

Here's tonight's pictures of the boys making sure to adjust my shutter, ISO, and aperature.