4. How Blurry Do You Want Your Background? The lower your aperture/f-stop, the more blur in your background. The image below was shot at a f/2.8. Check your lens to see how low your f-stop will go. To enjoy what I call a “buttery, blurry background”, you are going to want a lens that drops down to f/2.8 or even lower.
Portrait Mode (the lady’s head icon) is another way to go that doesn’t require you to set the f-stop. It automatically gives you a lower aperture. But you can have fun and take control by also switching to Aperture Priority Mode. This means you pick the degree of blur (when picking your f-stop) and the camera decides the shutter speed for you. The subject of aperture, shutter speed and ISO are all covered in depth on our second award winning DVD, Beyond the Green Box!
Thanks MeRa! Love these posts. They remind me to keep it simple not overthink or get too frazzled. Looking forward to the Chicago Workshop!!
Awesome tips, as always! Thanks!!
GREAT tips! Thank you so much for sharing!!!!
you are so sweet to share all this! I love the last photo – and tip number 7 -too funny!
I love a flash that swivels! I’ve been using a Gary Fong “dome” lately. I prefer to swivel backward though. The Fong requires extra power or stops. I don’t like to give up stops.
Didn’t you say you would be offering some Lightroom Presets at some time, or am I confusing you with someone else?
The tips are immensely helpful, you two are immensely creative, and I can’t wait for Chicago. 🙂
Now, to dust off that old Speedlite and give her a whirl…
These are great tips! Thanks for the encouragement to make mistakes. It’s a releif to not try to be perfect all the time!
Those tips are awesome! Thank you Mera!!!
hi mera
Hi Mera..
Thanks again for the tips. Question. I am diligently working on putting together my portfolio to show. I know in your dvd you explained how you were using your portfolio to show when you were starting out..doctors office was one of the examples.And my pediatricians office is alarmingly bland! My question is..were all of your pics color black and white…what size? I just want to make sure it looks as professional as can be before I show it off. Any tips would be great! Thanks..K
Love this, thanks. Just what I needed. My brain was starting to get fuzzy from the San Diego Workshop back in May. Nice little refresher. I printed it out to carry around with me. LOL I so wish I could go to Chicago…hmmmm.
I hit send on my comment too quickly, must need some caffine or something.
I shoot Nikon, can anyone recommend a good external flash?
Hi Katie..I shoot nikon also. I use the SB800 external flash…very happy with it so far.
Thanks for these posts… I too print them and carry them in my camera bag! I love going down the list and trying all your wonderful tips one by one. Thank you for the words ” You Can Do This!” and thank you for sharing your talent and wisdom with all of us.
“Mistakes are necessary when getting better at photography–mistake away!!”
This is the lesson that I just learned at my first newborn shoot. Of course, I saw allll of my flaws. My client saw beautiful pictures of his newborn that brought tears to her eyes. I decided that I need to live by the motto “Live and learn”. I’m glad I’m not the only one!
Thanks so much for sharing your list from the BlogHer presentation. I really enjoyed it and was typing as fast as I could, but my notes did not come out quite this organized!
Hi Mera, I spoke with you briefly at the BlogHer Cocktail party at Macy’s, thanks so much for putting up your notes as requested! That way, even those of us working the conference can now benefit 🙂
[…] been practicing Me Ra Koh’s Top Ten Tips For Photography, concentrating on #2: Fill the frame and #4: blur the background. Here are my results so […]
wow…great tips on how to use the flash.
how do you change your color pictures to such a nice b/w? my professional wedding photographer changed some of our pics to b/w but it has a really cold, gray tone to them.
[…] got the excited “I can do this, I can do this…” flutters in my stomach when I read these Top Ten Photography Tips from Me Ra Koh Photography. I found the article from one of my favorite photography blogs, Shutter […]
I loved your session! I took good notes but having your images here as examples is excellent! Thanks so much for posting this.
I have a question for you – since I didn’t win the copy LightRoom!! all I have is PhotoShop :-), and I know you said it was easy to do a vignette with PS too, but I can’t find anything obvious. Or did I misunderstand you?
So great of you to put up the notes! So great to hear a refresher.
I have been soooo busy – as usual – but very soon I want to get up the review and giveaway for your fabulous videos. They are so great – you are such a talented teacher! So many talents you both have!!!! 🙂
Talk soon 🙂
Since it is after midnight – I plead exhaustion for the fact that I said “so great” THREE times in that last comment! good grief!
But I mean – you really are “sooooo great!” lol
[…] if you didn’t go to BlogHer and are interested in photography, you can read Me Ra Koh’s photography tips, THE EXACT TIPS SHE GAVE US AT THE CONFERENCE AND WE PAID FOR! You can get it for FREE! She was a fantastic speaker, explaining things in easy to understand […]
Thank you SO MUCH for these tips! One of my new years resolutions is to actually LEARN something about photography and not just always point and shoot. This is really helpful for getting an idea about what iso, fstop, shutter speed even means! I also love the tip about working on one thing at a time.
[…] not have to think about camera settings and just play with composition! I was thinking about the Third’s Principle a lot, and seeing how far I could push the envelope. It was also fun having the space of a square […]