- Blurry backgrounds, shallow depth of field, bokeh or bokeh
seems to be the look that everyone is after these days,
especially for their YouTube videos.
In this video, I'm going to show you how you can
achieve that look using DSLRs, using video camera,
and point and shoot cameras.
And make sure you stick around to the end,
'cause I'm also gonna show you how you can get
the best results with your smartphones as well.
(upbeat electronic dance music)
Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video
where we release a ton of content
to help you get better results with your videos faster.
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that we're gonna cover in this video
you can find linked in the description below.
So let's jump into it.
To achieve the blurry background effect,
it really comes down to three things.
We're gonna start off with a quick overview of each.
We'll then show you exactly what you need to do
to get an awesome bokeh effect for your camera
including DSLRs and point and shoot cameras,
and if you're on a smartphone, the process is
a little bit different, but we will be
running through some pointers at the end,
so make sure you stick around.
Okay, so now onto the three things that really determine
the level of blurry background effect
you can achieve with your camera.
The first one is the camera lens and sensor size.
Now, these two really go hand-in-hand when it comes
to creating that blurry background look.
The camera sensor is essentially
the receiving element in your camera.
It's the part that receives all the light
and the information, the colors, coming through
from your camera lens onto the camera sensor
where it's processed into an image or a video.
So the combination of the amount of light that's coming
through your camera lens and is allowed through your camera
lens onto your camera sensor will determine
the output image or video that you're creating.
So without getting too technical, in order to create
this blurry background or shallow depth of field,
you need to be able to let in as much light as possible
into your camera lens onto your camera sensor.
So there's two parts to this.
You can adjust in most cameras the amount of light
that is let in or captured through your camera lens
by the camera sensor by an aperture setting
that's on your camera lens.
The lower the number, the more light that's being let it.
The higher the number, the less light that's being let in.
So in order to get the blurriest background look
or the shallowest depth of field,
the first thing to do is to set up your camera
roughly in the position where you'd like it,
and to set your camera to manual mode
or to aperture priority mode, and that'll be
depending on the options that you've got in your camera.
Now you'll wanna adjust your aperture to the lowest number
possible for your camera lens, so it could be numbers
like four, could be 5.6, could be 2.8, could be 1.4.
It'll really depend on your specific camera and camera lens.
After you've set your aperture down to the lowest number
for your camera and for your camera lens,
the next setting to adjust is your shutter speed.
Now, this is dependent on where you are in the world.
If you're in Australia or the UK,
then you'll wanna set your shutter speed to 50 or 1/50.
If you're in the US, then you'll wanna set it to 60.
Now, you can also set it to a multiple of that number,
so if your shot is too bright, then you can double that,
so set it to 100 or 120, depending on your region,
to adjust the brightness of your shot.
Once you've got your shutter speed locked down,
then you can adjust your ISO.
Now, this is really the key brightness adjustment
for your videos, so the lower the number,
the darker the image.
The higher the number, the brighter the image,
but it is worth noting that the higher the ISO that you use,
the higher the chance of digital noise
or a grainy image being created by your videos.
So only go as high as you need to.
So to recap quickly, your aperture should be set
to the lowest number possible for your lens
to create that blurry background look.
You can then adjust the brightness of your shot
if you're in full manual mode by locking down your shutter
speed to either 50 or 100 if you're in Australia or the UK
or 60 or 120 if you're in the US, and then you can adjust
the brightness of your video by adjusting the ISO setting.
So the lower the number, the 100s, the 200s,
the darker the image.
The higher the numbers, the 800s, the 1600s,
the brighter the image.
So that's a really quick 101 run-through
on video camera settings and DSLR camera settings.
So number one was the camera lens and the sensor size.
Number two is the camera and the talent,
so yourself or whoever's on camera,
the positioning of both of those.
So really what you're looking to achieve here
is the greatest amount of distance
between the person on-camera, the talent,
yourself, and the background so that there is room
for that blur to come into play.
But you want as small a distance as possible
between the camera and the person on-camera.
So this will really depend on the camera that you're using,
on the lens and the zoom and all of that sort of stuff,
which we'll get to in a minute, but you want
as small a distance as possible between the camera,
the person on camera, with as big a distance
as you can between the person and the background.
Number three is the zoom and focus distance.
This is another one that's going to be dependent
on what camera you're using, what lens you've got.
If you've got the room, you can move your camera
back further and zoom in and readjust your focus
and readjust your framing of your shot by zooming in.
So zooming in and then reframing and focusing on the person
in the shot will give you a greater blur for the background.
But that's also really gonna depend on the camera
that you're using and whether you've even got a zoom lens
or the ability to zoom with the camera you're using.
So you can see that it really is a combination
of those three things to really get that blurry background,
shallow depth of field, or bokeh look.
Now, in order to get that blurry background look using
a smartphone, it's really important to note
that your sensor sizes in your smartphone cameras are much,
much smaller than a DSLR and even a point and shoot camera.
So, you're never going to be able to achieve the same
amount of blur as you would with an actual camera,
at least at this point anyway,
but what you can do to bring in some blur
in the background of your video is using your smartphone,
and again, this is really dependent also
on which smartphone camera or smartphone you're using.
I would suggest that you use the rear camera,
the primary camera on your device, and you'll want
to increase again the distance between the person
on camera and the background as much as possible.
So if you've got a really big room, then stand right at one
side and film with as much room behind you as possible.
The next thing that you'll want to do is to position
yourself as close to the camera as possible,
so once again, you've got that great distance behind you
and as minimal distance as possible
between yourself and the camera lens.
This is more important with a smartphone than it is
with any other type of camera, because the focus distance
on our smartphone cameras is so small.
So the closer that you sit,
the closer that you're framing yourself in the shot,
the better the blurrier background effect will look.
So what that will allow the phone to do
is to set the focus point on you instead of the background.
With some phones, that means you'll be sitting right
up close to the camera to be able to get this look,
which means that the total framing
of the shot would look way out.
Literally your head would be filling most of the frame.
So you definitely can achieve
this look with some smartphones and moreso the newer phones
than the older ones, but it'll really come down
to the amount of distance that you've got
between yourself and the camera and between yourself
and the background elements in your scene.
If you found this video helpful, make sure you click
that big subscribe button if you haven't already,
and give this video a thumbs up,
and check out the video linked on screen now
taking you through the best camera settings
for your DSLR, video camera, or point and shoot camera.
I'll see you soon.