is it the camera/lens or skill?

[kellyo!]

i dont know how to put in to words what i mean....

to get a photo with the background of your subject to be out of focus or blurred, is it camera/lens or skill?

when ever i am lucky enough to get it right it was by shear accident and i cant remember what i did...

or maybe i should say what do i do to get the area i want in focus to be right?

as in if i want to get creative and blur the objects infront to get the ones in back to be clearly the subject of what im capturing, what skill do i use?

how do i do it?

 

[Jeff Colburn]

Use the aperture to adjust your depth of field. Low numbers (3.4, 4) gives shallow depth of field while high numbers (11, 16) gives deep depth of field.

Have Fun,
Jeff

 

[Coldow91]

The aperture, focal length and distance between the camera the subject and the subject and the back ground all effect having the subject in focus and the background not.

Having a low f/stop (wider opening in the lens) will give you less DOF, meaning less of the picture will be in focus (ie make the background blurry). Also if the background is far from the subject it will more likely be out of focus.


It sort of does depend on the lens because some lenses have go to lower numbers of aperture (1.8, 2, etc) while other only go to (3.4,4,5.6)

 

[ann]

It seems your referring to using DOF(depth of field).

This is the result of using several things, aperture, focal length of the lens and the distance between lens to subject.
i.e.
a large fstop i.e. 2.8 will give a longer DOF,
telephoto lenses have less DOF, wide angle lens more DOF
the closer you are to the subject your focusing on the less DOF

The skill is knowing when to use which lens, etc. and this takes time and practice.

This can get very involve and takes more time and space then a simple few sentences can cover.

 

[|)\/8]

i dont know how to put in to words what i mean....

to get a photo with the background of your subject to be out of focus or blurred, is it camera/lens or skill?

when ever i am lucky enough to get it right it was by shear accident and i cant remember what i did...

or maybe i should say what do i do to get the area i want in focus to be right?

as in if i want to get creative and blur the objects infront to get the ones in back to be clearly the subject of what im capturing, what skill do i use?

how do i do it?

Lens and skill. You need the right lens and the skill to know when I blurred background will make the shot. You want to blur the background when you want your subject to really stand out. Here is a shot I took recently @ f/2.8, you can see how shallow the DOF is.

 

[CPayton]

Here is a good book that answers your questions in detail.

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson

 

[airgunr]

Another good book that I highly recommend is by John Hedgecoe, "The New Manual of Photography".

It will explain all aspects of photograhy in easy to understand language with good examples that make it all very clear. Well worth having as a resource in your library.