How to?

jusejuse · Jul 9, 2008

How do you take pictures with the lights in the distance be blurry just like in the picture below? Is it a lens or a filter? Hmmm... if it helps, I have a Canon rebel xti.

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg216/jusejuse/Inspiration/2367231188_2d4710d93a.jpg

icassell · Jul 9, 2008

This is usually done by using a large aperture (small f-stop number). This has the result of reducing the Depth of Field (DOF). This photographer focused on the subject in the foreground and opened his aperture up. You are somewhat limited by your lens -- many don't do well opened all the way up and if your minimum f-stop is too great, you won't get the effect you desire. "Fast" lenses (lenses with a very large maximum aperture/small minimum f-stop) tend to be more expensive.

prodigy2k7 · Jul 9, 2008

EF 50mm F/1.4 is like $300
EF 50mm F/1.8 is like < $100 i believe

I recommend the 50mm F/1.4 I have it and I love it, really sharp and shallow DOF

tirediron · Jul 9, 2008

The effect is also increased with lenses of longer focal length; telephotos have much shallower DoF at a given apeture than do their wide-angle cousins.

LaFoto · Jul 9, 2008

Although the photo shown is stored on your Photobucket account, I may well assume it is not your own, else you would not be asking your question. As a rule, we never embed other persons' work into our posts, only add links, so everyone knows at first sight that the photo which serves as example is not yours, ok? So I changed it for you.