Day Six: How To Make the Background Blurry, Part 2

This lesson from the 31 Days To A Better Photo series continues to talk about aperature and depth of field. Apparently, blurry background actually has a name...bokeh. My photo guru doesn't know how to pronounce that word, so I am not even going to attempt. My accent wouldn't do it justice :)  Anyway, the way bokeh is made is by using a large aperature and a shallow depth of field. The background will be perfectly blurry.

Also, if I am standing really close to a subject with a large aperature, my focal point will be smaller than if I am far away.

Here's an example:

1/30s f/5.0 ISO 800

The "a" is in focus and the blurry background is the bokeh.

I tried to take tonight's pictures of the boys early this afternoon because I had a school board meeting to attend. Evan is now getting tired of me taking his picture. :) Poor kid. Ethan is still okay with this, time will only tell for how long.