How to make the background blurr when taking a picture of an object with a Nikon D50 camera?

Use Aperture priority mode and dial the smallest f number you can,either using the ring on your lens,(if it has one ),or the command dial on the right hand side of the body,

Select 'portrait' mode on the preset mode. keep clicking.

Use a wide aperture setting, small F stop number. The F number is got by dividing the focal length by the aperture size. So a 50 mm lens with an F stop setting of 3.4 will have an aperture of 14.7 mm. Wide apertures reduce depth of field (less of scene is in focus).

setting the lowest apeture number is the right first step... but if the lens your using has a high f-stop, then you have to do a little bit more... if your using a high f-stop lens then the first thing you need to do is turn off the autofocus. The auto focus on a d50 will focus on your subject just fine... the problem is that means you have a lot of stuff going on behind the subject that will still be in focus...

You have to understand that every lens has a band in which things will be in focus... the higher the f-stop the wider that band of in focus is... the lower the number the more narrow the band... the problem is your cameras auto-focus puts your subject somewhere near the middle to front of that band... if you want the back ground blurry you need to make sure the subject is near the back of the band. If you had a camera with a depth of field preview you could simply hold it down when you focused and you would know just how closely you could focus and still have your subject in focus and the background out of focus... the d50 doesn't have that so you need to just do some trial and error. with the camera on manual focus, focus on something 1 foot in front of the subject and take a shot... then focus on something 1.5 feet in front and take a shot... repeat that focusing on something a little closer each time and then look at the results.... you'll find that some of the ones will have the subject in focus even though it looked blurry in the view finder... now you can get more blur in the background without having to buy more expensive fast glass.

he above advice is all valid.

another way would be to do it using the software method.

Google 'Photoshop tutorials' should lead you to sites explaining this method.

As the other two have said put the camera in A mode and scroll through to get the smallest aperture number. Something like f/3.5 f/4 or f/5.6.

In addition - zoom all the way in and walk back to fit it in.

Its a bit wordy, but have a quick look at: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutoria...

--- Zoom in all the way
--- Open the aperture wide
--- Get close to your subject

Blurred backgrounds may not be possible with wide-angle lenses even if you do the above.

Best effect is with 70mm and longer lenses.

For more information and a handy DOF calculator, go here:

http://www.dofmaster.com

Hope this helps.
V

A lens with a larger aperture will you get photographs like the one I've linked to below.

Aperture size is defined by a number. A large aperture would have a low number such as 1.8.

The more zoom you have, and larger the aperture, the more blurred the background will be.

With the Nikon D50, I would recommend getting a Nikon 50mm 1.8. It will allow you to take photographs in low light without a flash, and give you the blur effect you desire. (Yahoo link below for 50mm info)

Other contributers are talking about depth of field, which are perfectly valid answers of course, but there are other types of blur.

Panning your shot on a moving subject will blur the backgound and leave the subject sharp, if done properly (needs practice). This is called motion blur and can add 'speed' to a picture.

Another type of motion blur if your camera allows it is rear curtain flash, with this technique you pan as before, but just before the rear curtain of the shutter closes (hence the name) the flash fires, freezing and perfectly exposing the foreground, anything within range of the flash. Will the built in flash this will only be about 5 or 6 feet, but with a more powerful flash an area several tens of feet can be illuminated.

In both these techniques a slowish shutter speed is used 1/8 of a second or so, or even slower with practice.

Chris