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For the ones with an "L" of photography, i found these driving schools ;)

How to take better photographs (with interactive learning)

Camera basics: Shutter speed, aperture and ISO

Bought a Nikon D 40....
Now where to I press to get the pics??:)

Guys,

This might be a stupid question. But whats bracketing? How is it used?

I am still experimenting the bunch of features on my Nikon D40x and i wanted some help on how to take a portrait picture and blur the background completely and keep the person in full focus? Imagine i am taking the pic in normal daylight. So some questions are :-

Distance= How far should be good enough?
Aperture= I know that i need to keep a large aperture value to minimize the depth area( F3.5 is largest my DSLR offers)
Mode= Should i use Macro or Aperture?
White Balance= Auto or Daylight?
Ideal Focal length? ( i am on the kit lens) = 18mm or 55mm or anything in between?

gurus, help me take this nice trick photograph?

Only focal length and aperture decides the blur (DOF= depth of field) in your photograph.
Click with a large aperture and distance more or less equal to the minimum focussing distance of your kit lens, you will get shallow DOF meaning blurred background. Experiment with different focal length keeping the aperture maximum and learn.
Happy Clicking!

mobike are you talking of something like this ?



Do you see a toggle switch on the front on the camera towards the bottom left of your lens ? Usually lets you switch between Auto and Manual Mode.

Set that to manual , use portrait on the top dial and manually tune the lens to get the right focus.

NON VR 70-300 mm lense sells for 6k in grey here in delhi.

lbm non-VR lens(70-300mm) , there are 2 types.

The G-Type and the ED-Type lens both are from Nikkor.

The G-type is the cheapest, next in line is the ED and the costliest is the ED with VR.
Also the prices of the ED with VR (70-300mm) has dropped further. Any takers ?

Bracketing allows you to take a series of shots consecutively of the same frame. Most DSLRs have both Exposure bracketing and Whitebalance bracketing as well. The first one lets you take multiple shots of the same object in different exposures (You could then use it for generating a HDR :D) . And WB bracketing lets you do it with varying WB.

i believe aperture and focal length are the only factors affecting the DOF in images.
For portraits 55mm would be good but, i guess at 55mm your aperture size would drop down to f5.6..

Rjs, yes thats what i want to do. But, for that why do i have to set it to manual focus? Can't these results be achieved in auto focus?

rl:
--------------------

Yes you can also achieve similar results using Auto Focus, but using manual focus puts you in the driver's seat..!! :D

I am not too sure what are you saying here... what makes you think using manual focus here would put you into driver's seat or in other words would be better than auto focus.

It depends. On how much of the person you want in picture.
Open up as much as possible in you lens.
Use the longest focal length you have. ideally 85,100,135 and above is ideal for isolating the background.

Be careful with wide angle. W/A are used to take what they call "environment" portrait. For example if you want to include the person and also his work place. But i guess you are looking at bust/shoulder shot with b/g isolation. Longer focal length preferred. 55 on 1.5 crop sensor should be fine. But not sure how much isolation will be possible.

Yaay... dont use this word. It makes extremely difficult for us mortals to reply...