Noob needs help with taking a pic with a canon G9

[gendarmee]

Hey, I need to take a picture with the bike as the subject and the back ground behind it out of focus.
Is it even possible to take a picture of a standing bike with the back ground blurred.

 

[asfixiate]

Do you have Portrait setting on your camera?

 

[JimmyO]

You can do it in PS if all else fails...

 

[asfixiate]

In portrait mode it shows you info right? In manual mode set it the way the portrait mode was set.

Kind of a cheesy way to do it but I don't know your camera.

I've zoomed out all the way and walked close to my target without using any settings really and the background was blurry. I learned by trying different things though.

 

[Gopherkid]

I had the same issues you were having with my S3IS. My uncle was explaining to me that when it comes down to P&S, the construction of the lens makes it alot harder to find that DOF sweet spot, especially when zoomed in. I still dont understand it fully, but I own a DSLR now, and have no problem finding bokeh.

 

[asfixiate]

Try what I said...take the camera and zoom all the way in...walk closer to the target and see if the background becomes blurred.

Try without Photoshop first...doesn't hurt to know what you camera can do without software.

 

[asfixiate]

Who did your avatar? Was that your camera?

 

[K8-90]

If you do resort to using photoshop, here's how I would do it. First, you need to select your bike - and there are quite a few ways of doing this. If it has a lot of smooth lines, I would use the pen tool. Or you can make a quick mask and use the paint brushes. Or you could do a combination. Up to you. Then invert it to select your background. I would now select the quick mask again, and erase a little of the foreground with a large, soft brush to try and get the depth of field. Then you would go to blur>lens blur.

That's is just how I do it. I'm sure there are hundreds of other ways. Hopefully that wasn't uterly confusing... I'm tired and can't seem to think straight...

 

[usayit]

Reason why you can't get shallow DOF == COC

 

[jamesino]

Unless sensor size has something to do with it, I don't see why at f/2.8 it is impossible to attain a background bokeh. Try activating the Macro setting on your camera and get as close to your subject as possible and using the f/2.8 aperture.

 

[usayit]

Yes Sensor Size... hence COC and more difficult to obtain shallow DOF.

 

[RKW3]

Well the amount of bokeh has to do with a few things:

- aperture
- distance from you and your subject
- distance from your subject & your background

I think you should put your bike in a setting where the background is far away (ie not in front of a wall, perhaps in a large parking lot?), you should focus on the bike as closely as possible, and use f/2.8. Smaller cameras tend to have much more DOF than DSLR's do, so it's harder to get nice blur.

 

[audiobomber]

Unless sensor size has something to do with it, I don't see why at f/2.8 it is impossible to attain a background bokeh. Try activating the Macro setting on your camera and get as close to your subject as possible and using the f/2.8 aperture.

Macro mode on the G9 won't take in something the size of a bike. It's for small stuff only.

According to Bryan Peterson in Understanding Exposure, f/2.8 on a compact camera equals about f/11 on a DSLR. Extreme depth of field is easy to get, but a blurry background is very tough.

 

[Early]

Try moving the bike for starters, and then go from there. The edges of the bike are running into the background too much to get any separation affect.

 

[asfixiate]

Keyboard shot worked. Were you like a foot away?