Bokeh troubles

Tostitos. · Dec 13, 2009

Okay, so..

I have my camera set to Aperture Priority Shooting. The F number or whatever it is called is F2.8 (the lowest my camera will go). I looked at the screen, and it showed a beautiful bokeh image of my christmas tree. But, whenever I took a picture, the camera focused in and the bokeh was gone. It ended up being just a regular picture of our tree.

I'm not understanding what I'm doing wrong. I will focus in on an object as close as I can get to it, and the background will be blurry, but it will not have that nice bokeh effect. I've seen many awesome bokeh images here, so I was hoping that an experienced photographer could help me out.

I'm using a Sony Super SteadyShot DSC-H5, if you need to know that.

Inst!nct · Dec 13, 2009

humm, can you manual focus on that camera?

Tostitos. · Dec 13, 2009

yes. It says peaking Off, with some numbers.
My mom accidentally threw away the manual, so I'm not sure
how to work the manual focus.

Pugs · Dec 13, 2009

Try focusing on something in the foreground with the Christmas lights in the background. Basically, if you focus on the tree, the camera is auto-focusing on the tree.

Tostitos. · Dec 13, 2009

Pugs said:
Try focusing on something in the foreground with the Christmas lights in the background. Basically, if you focus on the tree, the camera is auto-focusing on the tree.

Just tried that.
At first, I used the Flexible Spot AF to focus on it and had no bokeh effect. Then, I played with the manual focus feature. It gave me the bokeh effect with the christmas tree lights, but that's all. I tried taking a picture of a present in front of the tree, and the present was just blurry.

Inst!nct · Dec 13, 2009

put the present lets say 10 feet from the tree, focus on the present, one third of screen is took up by present, focus on that!!! with tree in back and aperture around f / 4

Tostitos. · Dec 13, 2009

Inst!nct said:
put the present lets say 10 feet from the tree, focus on the present, one third of screen is took up by present, focus on that!!! with tree in back and aperture around f / 4

It took forever to finally get that damn square to turn yellow (that means it is focused). And when it did, I took the picture. But the pic came out very very bright, and there was no Bokeh. I tried it with a WB of Flourescent, and then switched the WB to auto..but it still came out very bright.

Inst!nct · Dec 13, 2009

hummm, can you show us some pics? what mode are you shooting in?

Tostitos. · Dec 13, 2009

one minute.

i'll have to go upstairs and load them on my mac.

Pugs · Dec 13, 2009

This is a link to your camera's manual.

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/DSCH2.pdf

Tostitos. · Dec 13, 2009

Thank you Pugs. I tried looking for it but couldn't find it.

@Instinct:
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p292/Mac_OS_X/001-2.png
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p292/Mac_OS_X/003-2.png
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p292/Mac_OS_X/002-3.png

KmH · Dec 13, 2009

You're not having bokeh troubles....You're having Depth-Of-Field troubles.

Finding the manual for your camera took me about 80 seconds:

Enter www.sonyusa.com

Hover on "Electronics" at the top of the page, then
hover on "Consumer",
"Cameras and camcorders",
"Digital Cameras",
click on "Support & Drivers",
click on "Manuals-Spec-Warranty",
go to option 2 and
select your camera from the drop down menus,
click "continue" for a list of users manuals.
Easy-peezy.

Give it a try, it will help your Internet search skills the next time you need to find something.

im_jacobf · Dec 13, 2009

Heyas! I am also just starting out with photography, but I figured I'd tell you how I took my first bokeh shot.

My house is pretty dark, so I had to stabilize the camera on our cat-clawing post, once it was stable, I set the aperature as low as it can go (5.6), and then I adjusted the manual focus until I got a bokeh in the viewfinder.

The camera was set to Aperature-Priority mode, which is why I had to stabilize it. I set the camera to take the picture 2 seconds after I pressed the button to eliminate camera shake.

Here is my result:

Give me a second and I'll look through your manual to see what your camera can do

After looking at what KmH said, I believe he is right. I am looking at your third photo when making the following observations.

My first is that your WB seems to be way too hot, I am not sure about the technical jargon, but the colors need to be cooler (too much orange). Secondly, you need better focus. One problem I can see is that it seems like the shutter speed of the photo was slightly longer than you could hold it stable, resulting in a blur in the front. If you try stabilizing, focusing, and adjusting the white balance then we may see some better results.

Give it a try and post your results