How can i de-focus background without using any apps

[bharathgup]

From the time, I got my smartphone, I developed interest in photography. Started looking at different photos, thinking about how they were captured and so on. During this time one of my friend bought a new DSLR. Luckily we had a trip with few more friends to one of the Himalayan mountains. I was clicking photos in my mobile phone + normal digital camera and my friend was taking photos in his DSLR. 

During the trek, I noticed him struggling because we were suppose to carry a bag pack with all the stuffs we need for 7 days (excluding food). Along with this he was carrying his DSLR also. I noticed DSLR doesn’t come so handy unless and until you are going on photography walk. Also, we cannot capture every moment in the same lens fixed to it. So basically, if I go for any holiday then DSLR with atleast 2 lenses adds as an extra language was my thought. This moment made me to decide – learn & show my photography in mobile phone camera itself (I know it can no way compete with the one which is captured using DSLR 😛 ).

Now I feel local guide connect is one such platform where I can share my photos and ask for suggestions to improve upon.

Last week I had been to my native and taken my nephew to skate’s class which he recently joined. Here I have taken this photo in my mobile phone.

What I noticed is - When I took my camera closer for capturing, I found that background gets de-focused properly. How can I achieve this if I am trying to capture this from far?

Is this considered as macro photography?

If there are any other suggestions, feel free..

[WetCoastCanuck]

What you are trying to do is changing the aperture to a smaller f number (which is an inverse scale, so the aperture is actually becomes larger), so you get a shallower depth of field. Most cellphones' standard app tries to capture pictures with a high f number so everything (background or not) is in focus. You can try 3rd party apps depending on your cellphone OS that supports aperture priority, then you can achieve that. Set the aperture to the highest # and see if you can see the difference.

It is not macro photography. Macro photography means you can take pictures very close from the camera to the subject.

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What I noticed is - When I took my camera closer for capturing, I found that background gets de-focused properly. How can I achieve this if I am trying to capture this from far?

Is this considered as macro photography?

If there are any other suggestions, feel free..

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[bharathgup]

thanks @WetCoastCanuck for that info.

Can you share me one such third party app info?

I am experimenting with Samsung S6 smartphone now.

[WetCoastCanuck]

You can try searching Google eg

https://www.google.ca/search?q=aperture+priority+android+app

[PaulPavlinovich]

Hi @bharathgup an app called Manual Camera will help with this. It depends a lot on your phone though. Many of them cannot go to small f numbers. Many of them due to the ratio of the lens to the sensor crop factor even when they go to a small f number won't likely achieve a pleasing result.

You might consider a smaller camera than a DSLR. I'm not going to go into brands, but there are plenty of mirrorless cameras that are much smaller than a DSLR and will yield excellent results. Significantly better than any phone.

Regards

Paul

[PaulPavlinovich]

Hi @Rembrandt why do you think that image wasn't made with a phone? The photo below was shot with my Pixel at f/2 and exhibits the same shallow depth of field as the shot of @bharathgup. Phones are quite capable of decent photos. The sensor and lens in my phone are 100x better than the first digital camera I had back in 1998.

Pixel Spring