lithron's Journal: 'cause I'm a painter and a photographer.. of sorts.

I didn't feel like posting all this in my /. journal, so instead you guys will have to check the entry in my other journal.

pictures of painted miniatures and other dorky D&D fantasy things

Comments welcomed (including constructive criticism!)

Background Blur

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I don't know what kind of camera you have, but if it has any sort of zoom and focus features you my be able to get some background blur out of it. Basically just zoom to max, and then get as close to your figure as you can and still have the camera focus. This will usually push the background out of focus. A blury background puts emphasis on the subject of the picture.

Just by coincidence I was shooting a few figures tonight. I don't paint, or even play. But enjoy taking photos. Here is one of my bett [clubneon.com]

Re:Background Blur

[lithron]

Thats a decent looking Necron you found.

How did you do the lighting? That seems to be the biggest problem I had when shooting. I didn't want to focus too close on the miniature because of the sub-par lighting I had. Perhaps I'll do some fake bluring via Photoshop to make up for it :-)

Re:Background Blur

[Neon Spiral Injector]

There are 119 more in the background. Just some obsessive-compulsive guy I know; I'll pass on the compliment.

Lighting? Over-head fluorescents. Really I've found that I can shoot in just about any light--at least with still subjects. Long exposures almost always look better than short. Up to a point, if you are seeing CCD noise you've past the point where your camera can work. But conversely: nice background blur comes from wide-open aperatures. Which usually means a quick shutter. So if your lens

Re:Background Blur

[BandwidthHog]

Helpful tip, thanks. I've been frustrated lately with my non-SLR digital (Nikon 4300) because I can't really control my depth of field, and have taken to blurring backgrounds by hand. Never thought of doing what you suggest, though.

Re:Background Blur

[lithron]

I read his tips and tried it. I'm still not sure I 'get it' yet.

Hopefully you have better luck than I.

Re:Background Blur

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Some cameras just do better than others at shortening the depth of field.

The simplest I can put it: Zoom to max telephoto. Set up two objects about 3 feet apart. Get as close as you can to the first one and focus on it. Shoot the picture. The second object should be defocused in the background. If it doesn't work, your camera may just have a very long depth of field that can't even be shortened enough at full telephoto to be useful.