Can someone explain to me how to make the background out of focus? Here are the pictures I took, and some of them I was able to get out of focus, but some of them aren't.


https://picasaweb.google.com/grandma...eat=directlink

Shooting Portraits with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/450D - For Dummies

:)

There are three primary factors that effect depth of field (DOF... what's in focus and what is out of focus)-distance from the camera, aperture, and focal length. Another factor is the size of the sensor in your digital camera, but we'll leave that out of the discussion for now. Switch your camera to aperture preferred mode, and take a series of pictures of an object... say 8' from the camera. Do that at four different focal lengths... wide, semi wide, normal, and telephoto. Write down the settings for all the pictures, then compare. I think if you do that, you'll see how focal length and aperture effect depth of field. The farther away you are from your subject, the more stuff will be in focus and visa versa. If you want your background to be out of focus, zoom in, lower your aperture (number), or move closer to your subject.

"The farther away you are from your subject, the more stuff will be in focus and visa versa. If you want your background to be out of focus, zoom in, lower your aperture (number)? Perfect! That is what I was trying to find out.

Love the Dummies books! Simple and to the point - Thank you for the link!

Yes, aperture number. Here's a link to Nikon's explanation with pictures:
http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/Photography-Techniques/g3cu6o1r/1/Understanding-Maximum-Aperture.html