Floating Flowers

[Brkrt22]

I was hoping to have the background flowers appear as if they were floating.
I'm new to my Nikon D3000 and used the Flower setting, any suggestions on how it could have been improved would be appreciated.
(Photo taken at Mendocino Botanical Gardens, July 2010)
DSC_0241.jpg

[Michael_2010]

I'm sure some pros can give you more specific advice but from an amateur's perspective, I don't think the bokeh is strong enough. The background is just clear enough to be actually distracting.

[Brkrt22]

Thanks Michael, I think you're absolutely right... needs more bokeh.
Now I just need to figure out how to shoot w/ more!

[Michael_2010]

Originally Posted by Brkrt22

Thanks Michael, I think you're absolutely right... needs more bokeh.
Now I just need to figure out how to shoot w/ more!

Does that camera provide the EXIF data? You could take a look and see what aperture setting it chose. You would want a very shallow DOF for a shot like this and a lot of that depends upon your lens.

[KansaiGreenie]

Hi Brkrt22,

Now I just need to figure out how to shoot w/ more!

Some quick advice to make your background blurry:

1) shoot at your widest aperture, 2) shoot at your longest focal length, 3) put your subject at the minimum focus distance.

For example, if I was taking this image with my camera, I would have set the lens to 100mm at F/4 and crank the focus ring all the way to the right and then move the camera back and forth until the flower in the foreground was in focus. That would give me the blurriest background possible with my camera.

I hope that helps!

KG