clear and fuzzy in the background
By Nadinest1
@Nadinest1 (2016)
Canada
February 15, 2011 5:56am CST
I have a new sort of expensive Fugifilm digital camera. The more I look at my friend's pic on Facebook, the more love them. She will focus on something, and in the background it is fuzzy. I want to do that.
I have looked it up online....and it's all about aperage....and all of this stuff that i don't understand using the Manual button.
Is there any way I can achieve this using the Auto button?
4 responses
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
15 Feb 11
The EASIEST way is to understand about how a camera focusses! One of the hardest ways would be to first learn Photoshop and to then learn how to select the background and put it out of focus! Natural effects gained by learning to use the camera are far better than unnatural, 'photoshopped' effects in the long run.
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
15 Feb 11
You don't need to use photoshop or anything like that. Just make sure that the auto focus is focussing on the face (there is usually a little mark in the viewfinder which shows the area it is focussing on). Things in the background should be quite far away and the face should be close to you (say 6 or 8 feet away).
The better the lighting, the less the background will appear out of focus, but you will get more of the effect you want if you use the maximum zoom.
Just as the pupil of your eye is small in bright light and large in dim light, your camera does a similar thing (the camera's 'pupil' is behind the front lens and is called the diaphragm). On the 'Auto' setting, it adjusts its size automatically according to the brightness of the subject. With a small aperture (in bright light), the picture will seem in focus over quite a long range of distances; with a large aperture, the range of distance over which things appear in focus is smaller and things in the background will be fuzzier.
I suggest that you read the manual carefully several times and try things out. There are also plenty of websites which will help you to understand about things like 'aperture', 'shutter speed', 'focus' and so on. You can't 'waste film' with a digital camera, so you shouldn't be shy of taking LOTS of pictures and deleting the ones that don't work! Switch the camera to 'Manual' occasionally and experiment! 
@spike12_ph (254)
• Philippines
15 Feb 11
if you're using a point and shoot camera, you can do that using macro setting. if you're using a dslr camera, i think it can be set by adjusting the aperture.
@hardworkinggurl (37063)
• United States
15 Feb 11
I agree with the above comment as I have corel photoshop 3 and it has that feature in order to do that. You can download a free trial but then it will no longer be free. Either that or search online for a free application.
Maybe something like Infranview which is free and I believe you can also achieve it with that one. Best of luck.
