Would you believe me if I told you these pictures were taken with the same camera and the same lens?
No?
Welp, they were! I used a Canon 5D mark iii & an 85 mm 1.8 lens for both of these images. They were taken in the same location and edited with the same settings.
So why do they look so different? Because my camera settings were different! This is why the person behind the camera totally matters! The image on the left is super grainy & boring while the picture on the right looks creamy and pops!
The setting that will give you that nice blurred background, also referred to as bokeh, is your aperture (F-Stop).
The lower the F-Stop number (like 1.8) the more blurred your background will get. Boom.
So why wouldn't you always have a lower F-Stop number? When you decrease the F-Stop number, a couple of things will happen that will affect your picture.
1. Your picture will become brighter because you are increasing the opening size, letting more light into your lens.
2. The point of focus will decrease. Meaning there will be a shallow radius of focus. If there were another person next to or behind Jonny/ Clark Kent (the focus point) they would be less in focus than Jonny in the right picture and equally in focus in the left picture.
ISO: 250 | F 1.8 | 1/2000 sec
ISO: 6400 | F/13 | 1/2000 sec
So, now that you believe me that these were taken with the same camera, here are the camera settings I used.
I hope this was helpful! Next, I'll talk about ISO & Shutter speeds. If you have any questions at all, I'm here to help! just write your question in the comments section and I'll do my best to answer them!
Just remember, we all start from somewhere!