Background Focus, Foreground Blur

[ny156uk]

Hi,

I raised this on the flickr-group but it quickly moved away from the main page and thought it might get a few more responses here:

Essentially a type of shot I quite like is where the foreground is out of focus and something in the background is in focus. My idea being something like the foreground 'edges' of the shot are maybe some out of focus leaves, and the front is maybe of a pond/lake or something.

I find it quite easy to get the background out of focus but not the foreground. I wondered if there is a technique/setup i should be trying.

The camera I have is a Panasonic DMC-FZ7. I'm new to the whole photography world (I took a lot of photos this summer and have gotten out of practice recently), any help/advice would be great.

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by ny156uk

Hi,
Essentially a type of shot I quite like is where the foreground is out of focus and something in the background is in focus. My idea being something like the foreground 'edges' of the shot are maybe some out of focus leaves, and the front is maybe of a pond/lake or something.

I find it quite easy to get the background out of focus but not the foreground. I wondered if there is a technique/setup i should be trying.

The camera I have is a Panasonic DMC-FZ7. I'm new to the whole photography world (I took a lot of photos this summer and have gotten out of practice recently), any help/advice would be great.

The only suggestion I can make after looking up what kind of camera you have is to use the manual focus to focus on something that is further away. So, use a medium aperture (maybe somewhere in the range of f/5-10) and use the manual focus feature of your camera (check your manual if you don't know how to do that) to pick something else in the shot to focus on.

Not sure if this is the sort of thing you're trying to achieve:

But in this shot, I used manual focus to make the trees behind the grate clear while the grate was out of focus. It was taken at f/11.

So maybe try giving the manual focus a try to see if that will get you your desired result. Hope that helps somewhat I'll try to explain more if you need, I just don't know how to use the features on your camera though

[Mtik]

Another tip is to get as close to your foreground as possible while maintaining focus on your subject.

Even with a small aperture ( normally used to keep both foreground and background in focus ), if your foreground is closer than the minimum distance you're guaranteed to get a nice blur.

-Tim

[googlit]

Originally Posted by Mtik

if your foreground is closer than the minimum distance you're guaranteed to get a nice blur.

This is especially true with zoom lenses.

The larger your aperture (the smaller the number), the more blur you will achieve.

[ron.richardson]

is it still called "bokeh" when the foreground is blurred like that? when referring to bokeh, i've always seen photos with the backgrounds out of focus

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by ron.richardson

is it still called "bokeh" when the foreground is blurred like that? when referring to bokeh, i've always seen photos with the backgrounds out of focus

I've seen it called "reverse bokeh" on a few places, but there's got to be a better term out there I'd think?

[grover]

this is something i have been wondering how to do, i really appreciate a photo like the one posted..where your scene is creating almost a window to look out onto the subject.

[ron.richardson]

it's a neat effect and one i plan on doing more often when i find the opportunity:

[ny156uk]

Thanks for the responses everyone, will hopefully get chance to try do this sometime soon

[piston9]

Good luck

The onyl problem you will have is the way focus works - you will need to set your ufocal point past what you want to capture... Think if it this way - if you set your focal point to 10 metres past your lens - but your depth of field is 5 metres - most likely 4 meters in front of the focal point will be in focus and only one behind.

I took two photo's from the same place - which will show it - one the background is really out of focus, the other the foreground is only slightly blurred... Both of these shot at f 5.6

Background blurred -


Foreground blurred -