Please please help me - can any photography genius help me?

[taliamcfalia]

Sat on the floor crying.

I have been trying all day to achieve the following effect on my photography. I run a small business and am taking Christmas photos. I would like my products in the foreground and this effect in the background.

There are two photos below of the same Christmas tree. I would like the effects with the blurred lights. My lights are the same size as hers: tiny fairy lights but on a black sheet.

I have followed all the instructions in this blog but the F on my Nikon 5600 can only go down to 3.5 while hers is lower.

I have moved my studio from room to room to allow more distance. I don't want to given in. Please help me

So dropping your f stop is the easiest way to get bokeh ( the blury light affect) as you can only go to 3.5 then your alternative is to increase distance so you need item... big distance... then lights.
If you need to do lots might be worth looking at a second hand 35mm/50mm with a lower f stop, you should be able to find one fairly cheaply.
Other option would be to artificially add bokeh with an overlay after.

The effect is called Bokeh - basically you want a fast lens at the widest aperture I use f1.4 normally when I want a nice bokeh effect - this let's yet get part of the image in focus while the rest remains slightly out of focus

www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-techniques/bokeh-for-beginners.html this might help

Thank you so much - is 6 ft away a long enough distance? @Darkrainbow

@BoredWithLife Thank you so much ill look at your link. my camera only goes down to f3.5 is there anything I can do with this camera?

If you can’t get a wife enough aperture another option is to shoot twice, in focus and out, and then to stitch the images together with photoshop.

You can also add the effect directly in photoshop. This guide shows you how;

Wider aperture, longer focal length, foreground close to the lens with good distance to the background. If your lens is a zoom, say a 35-80 f3.5 then set it to 3.5 and 80mm, position the tree, then the foreground subject, and see how you go. telephoto stacking basically.

It's a narrow depth of field, bokeh is a relatively new term (outside of Japan) that gained popularity with American amateur photographers on photographic forums around twenty years ago. Induced much eye rolling and muttering of "oh do fuck off" at the time. It's more the aesthetic quality of the blur than the actuality of the blur produced by the narrow depth of field. It was just a pissiing contest really - if you had a Leica M6 with the right lens (I forget which now) you had the 'best' bokeh. Apparently. Thing is, my 85mm F2 AIS Nikkor was the best portrait lens I ever used on 35mm and gave perfect narrow depth of field - if the aesthetic of the induced blur was what bokeh actually is then I personally liked it. However, the lens on my GW690III was really sharp and being on a 6x9 gave miniscule depth of field and a wonderfully smooth blur that knocked 35mm leicas into last century.

Once I went digital (and switched to canon) I stopped paying attention to specific lenses and just cracked on with what I had been doing to earn a living for the preceding decade. Still mutter at the term bokeh though 😂