Hello, I just purchased a EOS R8 and am using a EF40mm F2.8 STM (with adapter for R) I am so new to these camera I was just hoping to start with auto and take it from there... The issue I am having now is that when I am taking a photo of a person, the focus is on them and everything else is blurry. That can be good, but most of the time I want the back ground not blurry. How can I stop this blurr effect. I think it is the aperture setting, auto seems to select the lowest all the time. Would many focus points help too? If you could explain what is happening, why and what setting in the R8 I can do to turn off (and on) it would be very helpful Do I need a different lens? thanks in advance! James
Your assumption is correct on the f stop/ aperture causing what is called Bokeh. When you are shooting in AUTO are you selecting a person mode? Because that setting will tell the camera you want to shoot with the aperture wide open and get a soft blurry background. You don't need a new lens, you just need to get to a semi auto mode where you stop down the f stop a bit (maybe f8 is a good target to try) and regain the background. There is a thing called a depth of field calculator and you can find out how much of the image will be in focus in front and behind your focus point given the distance from subject the lens length and the aperture.
Hello, thanks for the reply It seemed to do more with the auto focus On P Dial > 1 > subject to detect, it was people selected. I changed to none. that helped most
I f your talking about this Program option on the dial I am not sure what you mean by setting to none. I assume you meant the portrait option which will like i mentioned set the smallest aperture leaving you with a small amount of the scene in focus. I disagree with saying it had to do with auto-focus, either the auto-focus did its job and found focus or it did not. Aperture controls the amount of light through the lens when the blades inside close down. the wider the hole the more light and quicker the image can be taken, this however flattens the focus, so in the case of the head shot portrait usually at f2 that is only a few inches, where as a landscape shot 100 yards away from subject at f16 would have 20 yards of depth in the image that would show in focus. I still believe this is all DOF (depth of field), your setting moving off auto "portrait" mode probably allowed the camera going to lets just say f5.6 or f8 instead of wide open at the 2.8 which will have a very narrow part of the image that can be sharp and in focus. All that said, i am not 100% sure exactly the settings you change after looking at this camera manual, that and i never use any auto settings on mine so i had to find the manual to confirm what they even look like for your camera. https://cam.start.canon/en/C013/manual/c013.pdf
You are right it's depth of field Sorry that P dial was just me not understanding modes... I am very green I did change the F to high as 20 and I was still getting the bokeh effect. Focus was chasing the person around. However... On page 462, 463 - It describes auto focus in the menu. "subject to detect". It was selected to people, and I changed it to none. That changed, seemed to have some benefit whilst using P mode (I think). However I could be wrong I am reading page 134 AV mode: Aperture Priority AE. Looks like this is the mode is need to use and do some shots and testing with on higher F levels.
Auto modes just take a photo concept an over simplify it to a dial setting to make it very friendly to a new user. It doesn't always do what you want. Landscape - set the f-stop as high as you can, for example f 22, this will mean you need to have higher ISO or longer shutter to compensate. Portrait - F-stop as low as you can, maybe f2.8 this will give a soft background. Panning - Sets a shutter that is fast enough to freeze action in the moment, lest say 1/100 but slow enough to allow for the blur of everything you are panning across as you move the lens with the car. TV Mode, - you set the shutter to what you need, this means you freeze or blur action in the image as you need. The camera dials in the aperture for you based on the shutter setting you give. AV Mode - you set the aperture based on how much depth of field is needed in the shot. Based on this selection, the camera will set the shutter accordingly. The problem is that scene settings like the first few examples work in extremes and are decent in handling the scene but not great. Your shutter and aperture work with each other to balance out the light that his the sensor, with landscape if you shoot f22 for a very detailed background, you may need to be on a tripod with a 5 second shutter depending on the lighting. If this is a group of people maybe you need to shoot at 1/80 to freeze their movement and shooting landscape setting is a bad idea because it assumes slow shutter and large f-stop. A portrait of a group of people ideally is at f8 which hopefully will allow at least 1/80 of a second. This is where you can always bump iso a bit if needed to get what you need. So generally the idea settings probably are somewhere in the middle ...not on the extremes of the auto scene options like portrait or landscape. I like to have people use TV and AV mode and dial in what is best for their image and see how the camera handles the rest. Keep in mind the numbers i gave are for example purposes, maybe at f8 you at 1 sec shutter, maybe your at 1/1000 that would all have to do with the time of day and the lighting situation. Its all about learning the dial balance between these in any given setting.
