How do I make this a "photograph"?

thwacker · 01-10-2013, 09:48 AM

I took this picture of my daughter with my new Canon Rebel T3i in portrait mode. Shouldn't the background be slightly blurred?

Greg T · 01-10-2013, 12:06 PM

Your daughter is so cute. I don't understand the question. Is it not already a "photograph"? What are you looking to do? Do you want a print?

c-mouse · 01-10-2013, 02:22 PM

I would guess that because the background was soft to begin with,,,,the camera program just left it as is....and there is not much space between your daughter's body/head and the background material....if there had been more space between them---ie the background six to 12 inches back,,,it might have blurred a bit more.

Cook22 · 01-11-2013, 12:30 AM

I agree with Pansy.
The way portrait mode works is that it makes the centre of focus sharper and softens anything that is farther away from the camera. But because your daughter is lying on the blanket, there's not enough distance between her and the background for the camera to differentiate.
I'm not familiar with the Rebel, but I think it's also true to say that most kit lenses don't have a wide enough aperture to really make a significant difference except when there's a reasonable distance between the subject and the background. If you're looking for something comparable to a studio portrait, then they're likely to be using pro lenses which offer a much wider aperture.

thwacker · 01-11-2013, 06:13 AM

Thank you!! I totally get it now. I really love to take pictures and what I was trying to do here was take her 6 month pics myself. I like the ones I got, just couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting the blur. I will now try with some space behind her.