Getting a blurry background?

[Breezy Smeezy]

I'm shooting for a conference and I love the shots with the subject in focus and a heavy blurred background behind the subject. I have a Nikon D5000 with a 18-55mm and a 55-200mm lense. Is it a certain lense that helps with the background or is it stictly settings like aperture priority that will give me the blur?

 

[o hey tyler]

It's dependent on the max aperture of your lens. You will find that you won't be able to isolate the subject as well as you would want with the kit lens in terms of having an OOF background. However the 55-200mm lens will probably work better for this. I'm willing to bet though if you're shooting a conference it will most likely be indoors and with low light. Neither one of those lenses is going to treat you well in low light as they have small maximum apertures (as far as aperture goes). f/3.5-5.6 for the standard kit lens is pretty unforgiving, and the telephoto I am going to guess is f/4-5.6.

I'd invest in a cheap 50mm with a fat aperture. Like f/1.8. An f/2.8 zoom is a good choice, but a bit pricier.

 

[Breezy Smeezy]

Yeah, you're spot on. Low lighting, indoors, and it doesn't get any bigger than 5.6, maybe 4 depending on if it gets brighter. I don't really see a difference with the 55-200mm lense and I cant get very close.
Thank you anyway. I just need to save and invest in some certain lenses.

 

[o hey tyler]

f/4 is a larger aperture than f/5.6. I suggest you also read your camera's manual before you shoot the event to understand it better.

 

[Robin Usagani]

if you use your 200 mm you can really blur the background. Its all depend on how far you are from the subject and how far the background is. Having a faster lens will help too. I used 55-250mm kit lens to do this.

 

[shaunly]

just go pick up a 35mm f/1.8 AF-S. That will do the trick.