Just in time. That through-the-window sunset light is a great thing to have. Fortunately, we have this, too. My daughter is benefitting heavily from it even though it will be years before she knows it.
By the way, I have Part I of my challenge complete. Testing phase. Blowing out the background at 35 mm. I don't remember what F we were talking about. But this one is...
Focal Length 35 mm, Aperture F 5.6, taken with a mirrorless Sony Alpha 6000 and a kit lens. And I would call it a partial success at blowing the background out. Of course, I am speaking about the yard and the houses behind the window frame, not the frame itself.
And I know you said Portrait. And you said Completely (not that completely here...yet). Which will take some more of the same theory I applied here. But now I am confident my theory is right and even at those parameters, I will blow out the background of a portrait.
Because there's that third factor that influences the DoF. Apart from Aperture and Focal Length. It's the relation of distances between camera - model/object and model/object - background.
Or a double relation camera-object-background if you like.
Something like:
Cam__Obj__________________________________________Backgr shoud do. Perhaps with more "______" before the Background.
If we are someplace outdoors, we take a photo of our model at 35 mm and a short distance between us (yeah, pretty close to the person's face), and we have a mountain range that sits a couple of kilometers away...we should be able to blow that mountain out completely.
So...let's see where Part II of the challenge takes me ;)
Cheers!
Yes of course you can blow out the background if you just have enough distance between the subject and said background. But what you need to consider also is that 35mm will distort your subject quite heavily. It might not be apparent here, but if that was a face, then it would be. If you had a f/1.8 lens, that background could be quite soft.
Quite true. The distortion is what needs to be dealt with ;) So... at some point, the face will be safe from distortion. The thing is, the background then needs to go further away. And there's the perspective thing, the frame widening too much... We'll see. It's an interesting case to play with. I am not saying I would normally prefer a wide-angle to a good zoom lens.
Have a good week and lots of inspiration!
85mm, f/1.8, prime lens, done deal. Science.