How to get a blurred background photo with Nikon D5100?
Still in the midst of learning here but just curious how do you get a photo with a blurred background? Also, in order to do so, does the subject need to be still?
I have the kit lens.
By way of explanation shallow (short) DOF (Depth of Field) which is what you're talking about is strictly a lens issue and has nothing to do with the camera.
It requires a wide aperture regardless of lens used.
Tell you what, here's an article on the subject. Read this to see if you learn how to get this photo effect.
Look up, 'Depth-of-field,' the effect is possible with the kit lens, but you'll have to understand the principles first - it's how we all learned.
Blurred background are accomplished by using the widest lens openings (f/stops). Use manual, aperture priority or shutter priority and set your camera accordingly.
I completely agree with both Jim and Andrew below. Read about depth of field and how to get more and less of it.
It IS harder with a kit lens as they usually don't open up their iris wide enough to de-focus the background much.
Given what you have, you can maximize low depth of field effects by
[1] bringing the in-focus subject closer to the camera and having the background further away from you.
[2] zooming in on the foreground subject
[3] opening your lens iris as far as you can -- it will be at the lowest number that looks like 3.5, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32 (the "f stops")
[4] borrow a "faster" lens from another Nikon owner.
Since you used the word "blur" and are implying that you might want to shoot something that is moving, you may also want to experiment with motion blur background effects. You can stand next to the street and shoot at a moving car while turning the camera to follow the car's motion and this will tend to keep the car's image sharp and apply a blur to the background. This can be experimented with a lot to get great effects, even it you are just shooting pictures of your dog running.
Search google images for "panning blur" to see some examples of that.
You've got a pretty awesome camera there for learning and for getting professional quality results. Have fun experimenting with it.
You have some good answers
For clarity, "blur" refers to what happens to an image when the shooter uses a shutter speed that is to slow to prevent camera and/or subject movement from causing the whole image to become blurred.
Out of focus backgrounds (called Bokeh sometimes) is the result of the photographer using a medium telephoto lens.placing the subject close to the lens (but not closer than the lens is able to focus) and using the largest aperture of the lens. With your 18-55 mm lens having a rather small aperture (f/5.6) at 55 mm, obtaining shallow depth of field will become problematic. A lens like the much more expensive 24-70 mm f/2.8, 50 mm f/1.8 or 60 mm f/2.8 macro is the lens you want to save your pennies to buy if you really, really want to throw the background of your images out of focus.
Here is a link that will show you that how the out of focus regions look based upon the design of the actual lens
http://www.kenrockwell.com/...arison.htm
And this link
http://www.nikonusa.com/...bokeh.html
EDIT:
Something you may find helpful
Simple as this - get a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D from your local camera store. And contact me via www.facebook.com/JoshuaEnriquezPhotograp… When you have it. Easy as that.