Originally posted by Maverick:
I have a question for anyone that knows...for some of the pictures in the self-portrait category, how did the photographers achieve that blurry effect (while in some cases keeping other objects in focus
I took the picture where you see the face in a car's side view mirror and a building blurred out in the background. To achieve this effect, my wife drove the car, and I took many pictures. All of them had slower shutter speeds (I believe my entry was 1/4 of a second...) Since I was in the moving car, I was not moving in relation to the camera. The background however, was moving in relation to the camera. the longer shutter speed gave a nice blur effect to the portions of the picture that were moving, while keeping the steady portions of the picture a focused appearance.
Other ways to achieve a moving effect are to move the camera, although I have a feeling since these are self portraits, that in most cases the object moved was the photographer themself. In either case, a longer shutter speed is required. Since the shutter is open longer, it captures any motion that occurs while it is open. This method is also effect for giving streams or waterfalls a "sheet like" appearance.
On the other hand, shutter speeds that are faster (as opposed to these slower ones) are generally used for sports and action shots to get a shot where the object is not blurred (a picture of a basketball shooter or baseball pitcher could very well be 1/1000 of a second or higher to get a shot where the person does not appear to be moving in the shot (a "freeze frame.") |
