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How to Get a Blurry Background in Your Videos
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May 22, 2024
### How to Get a Blurry Background in Your Videos In this video tutorial, you'll learn how to achieve a professional-looking blurry background, also known as bokeh, in your videos. The tutorial explains the key factors that contribute to this effect, such as adjusting your camera's aperture, using the right lens, and positioning your subject at the optimal distance from the background. You'll also get practical tips on camera settings, lighting adjustments, and techniques to enhance the depth of field. Perfect for vloggers, content creators, and aspiring filmmakers, this guide will help you create visually appealing videos with a beautifully blurred background.
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0:00
Today I'm going to show you five different ways to get a blurry background in your videos
0:03
What I want you to keep track of as we're going through each of these changes is how blurry is this railing behind me
0:08
and then how blurry is the background, the buildings way, way behind me
0:12
And so what you're going to see change, obviously, more than anything, should be the blurriness of the railing right now
0:18
four or five feet behind me. And so right now we're recording at F2.8 and 16 millimeter
0:23
So the first way I want to show you today is to get further away from the background
0:28
So we'll keep everything else the same, the F-stop and the focal length of the camera
0:33
and we're just going to step back away from this background. Okay, so I'm still arm's length away from the camera, but you can see I'm, I don't know
0:40
15 feet away from the railing behind me. Is this a little bit bluer than it was just a second ago
0:45
The background, the building's way behind me probably haven't changed that much. They're still, you know, a mile away or whatever that is
0:52
But you should see a bit of a difference with the railing being that I went from, say, four feet to
0:58
15 feet away from it. Okay, so the second way to get a blurry background is to use a larger focal
1:04
length. So you need to get the camera further away from you and zoom in. So this is as the widest
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lens that we own. So this is 11 millimeters on the Sony A6600. And now let's zoom out. So we'll show
1:16
you 16 millimeters 24 35 and 45 And you see as the camera gets further away and we zoom in on me that the railing and the buildings behind me will get blurrier as we move the camera back further
1:30
So we're back at 16 millimeters again. I'm about arm's length away from the lens
1:34
How does this look? Okay, now at 24 millimeters, do you notice any difference between this and 16 millimeters
1:39
Oh, okay. So there's a dog barking right there that just will not stop while we're trying to record
1:44
Okay, so this is 35 millimeters. Do you see a little bit more blur between this and 24 millimeters
1:50
Okay, so here we are at 45 millimeters. You should see even more blur with the railing right now
1:54
Basically, the further the camera is away and the more zoomed in it is, you'll see further separation and blur between me and the railing as the background
2:02
and even more blur with everything further behind me. We can't go back any further or Diego is going to fall off the edge of the roof
2:08
So that's as far as we're going to go in today's test. But as you see, we went from 11 millimeters all the way to 45 millimeters
2:15
and I stayed the exact same distance away from this railing, but as we zoomed in more
2:21
you know, we used a higher number focal length, but the camera got further away, you see more
2:26
blur behind me. So the third way to get more background blur is to use a lower F-stop or a more open aperture
2:33
So the two lens that we showed you earlier were the Tamron 11 to 20 millimeter and the Sony 16 to 55 millimeter Both of those the most open aperture the smallest F is 2 So with the Sigma lens though it at 2 right now but it can go all the way down to 1
2:50
So what I want to show you is how much of a difference it makes the F-stop that you're using while you're recording
2:55
So I'm going to show you F-10, so there shouldn't be very much background blur
3:00
and then we'll show you what it looks like at F-1.4. So here's what it looks like at F-10. So you should notice the building and the railing behind me are much more in focus than they were just as
3:09
second ago at F2.8. Okay, so here's what it looks like at F1.4. Obviously there's a big difference
3:14
between F10 and 1.4, but also a pretty decent difference between 2.8 and 1.4. The difficulty
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with getting lenses that have an aperture this open or an F stop this low is there aren't that
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many and generally they're fairly expensive. So the two previous lenses we were using were the Sony
3:30
16 to 55 millimeter 2.8 and the Tamron 11 to 20 millimeter also 2.8. So there aren't zoom lenses available
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with this low of an F-stop, you need to go with a prime lens like this 16-millimeter Sigma Lens
3:43
One of the big issues with having an aperture this wide, though, is that it lets in a ton of light
3:48
which gets me to the next point. So the issue with using an F-stop of 1.4 is that it lets in a ton of light
3:55
So that gets me to the fourth way to get a blurry background is by using ND filters
3:59
So to properly expose the shot we had to close the aperture down to F5 So you probably notice now that the railing in the buildings behind me aren as blurry as they were a second ago And that was because we were using ND filters for all the other previous shots So to record at F2 or obviously at F1 you need to use an ND filter to basically darken the image enough to open the aperture and get more background blur
4:21
So a fifth way to get a blurry background is actually with your cell phone
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So if you download the ProTake app, this is something you can be done with the free version of the app is you can digitally adjust
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the F-stop. So right now it's set at F-8.0, so you shouldn't see a whole lot of background blur
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But I'm basically going to show you F8, 4, and 2, and you can see how it digitally blurs the background
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Okay, so here's what F-4.0 looks like. You notice a little bit of a difference between this
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and the previous shot. So here's what it looks like at F2.0. So you'll notice more blur behind me
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right now. But the thing is, this is all being done digitally. So it basically takes a cut out of me
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keep that in focus and tries to blur everything else. The one thing is this isn't going to be
5:03
perfect. So if I move around a lot or if I get closer to the camera, you'll probably notice some of
5:08
the digital blur on me or maybe it loses focus on me. This is a technology that little by little
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is going to get better over time, but it's not going to work the same or as well as having a
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lens where you can adjust the F-stop. If you like content like this and want to learn how to
5:22
record better videos, check out the playlist right here. Hope to see you in those and future videos