Disclaimer: I am very much an amateur when it comes to photography. The following tips I have learned from very minor experience and from listening to those with more experience than me. There may be inaccuracies in the information so I suggest you try them out by playing with your camera at home or out and about, rather than at your sister’s wedding or kids birthdays where you may be killed for rubbish photos. If any more experienced photographers find inaccuracies please leave a comment.

The first tip relates to background blur. If you are taking a photo of someone or something, such as a portrait, and you want all of the focus to be on the subject, you can increase the blur on surroundings by doing the following:

- Set your camera to aperture priority mode.
- Set the aperture wide open by setting a low f-stop number. The lowest my camera will go is 3.5 so this is what I use.
- Increase the distance between the subject and the surrounding by as much as possible. Having someone stand a few metres away from a tree will blur the tree much more than if they are standing a metre from it.
- Stand back further from your subject and zoom in. The more zoom you use the more blur you will get.
- By zooming in you will get more movement in the camera, so use a tripod and your cameras timer.
- The box in the centre of your screen or viewfinder is your focal point. This is where the cameras autofocus determines the distance to focus at. Point this box at the area that you want to be in focus and then press your shutter button down halfway. This will set your focal length. When my camera has set the focal length it will beep at me. Your camera may do the same or have some other indicator that the focal length has been set. If not it will generally set it within a second or so. Once the focal length has been set you can move the camera (while still holding the shutter button half-down) to frame your photo. You may want your in-focus subject off-centre.
- Look carefully in your viewfinder or at your screen to ensure that your are including everything you want, and nothing that you don’t.
- Press the shutter button the rest of the way down to take your photo.

Sound simple doesn’t it? There is still a lot more to it so don’t expect these tips to turn you into Chase Jarvis, Richard Avedon or Yousef Karsh. Keep clicking.