How to Create Dreamy Soft Background

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We probably all love these beautiful photographs with a flower or animal nicely in focus and the background blurred, with the background just being a nice color backdrop for the subject.

How can you get images like that and how do you do it when being on
photographic safari? You can work with the f-stop, using a small f-stop number to have only lets say the flower in focus and the rest blurred out. But it is also possible to get the same effect by being very close to the subject when photographing it. A wide-angle lens will do very well with that.

During
wildlife photography courses and team building photographic safaris we practice the being close version with subjects like flower when we are in the camp or have a picnic in the bush, but it is not working when you want to photograph animals, lets say birds. They will not let you get that close or it might be too dangerous doing that. In that case choosing a big distance results in the same effect. The telephoto lens in combination with a single focus point blurs out the background and your subject is in focus.

You don’t have to wait for a photographic safari to practice. Just look around where you live and find a flower and/or bird.

Happy snapping!


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com