Blurring foreground bars

pg333

pg333

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Can somebody please tell me how you would focus on the background rather than the foreground in a shot like this test one from today (very cold, so didn't play for too long). I would like to try and take some proper shots from this floor and want to get the bars as invisible as possible - are there any tricks I can use or are these bars in particular just too numerous and thick to blur once the best settings are used?

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Thanks for any help.
 
Manual focus on the background, if you used auto it probably just snapped to the bars. And get closer, like really close, to the bars to get more separation.
 
Manual focus, close to the bars, wide open aperture, zoom as much as possible.
 
Thanks guys - unfortunately there's a barrier before the bars so you can't get any closer to them, but I shall try manual focus and wide aperture next time, although I'm ultimately trying for a widescreen panoramic effect so might not be able to use much zoom.
 
One trick that's worked for me shooting through catch fencing is to move around a bit, so the camera's never looking at the same piece of fence for more than a fraction of a second. That usually allows the AF to get a fix on the background rather than the fence and once it's locked on, it tends to stay there.

For that shot though, I would use MF - cityscapes don't move as fast as racing cars!
 
Hmmm... as already said, if you can't physically get any closer to the bars, you need to get closer with a lens, which means telephoto if possible. If you were to zoom in to about 200mm from where you're standing, you would likely lose some of the bars, though a wide aperture (on that kind of zoom an f/2.8 would probably suit) and manual focus on the background.

Sometimes some shots just aren't possible, and this is one of those cases if you're wanting something wide. If you were wanting the wide shot, you'd likely need to be literally standing with your lens touching the bars.

Hopefully that helps!
 
Not possible given your position I'm afraid. As stated you need a long lens and you need to be pretty close to the fence (so the bars are so out of focus you don't see them).

Other than that, from where you are even if you try manual, the fence will still be the prominant subject in the scene.
 
Thanks for all the replies. The precise shot itself wasn't really all that important, its just more the approach I was trying to learn for setting up shots like that one where bars/fences/things get in the way of what you actually want to take a picture of, so you've all been helpful in your advice on how to best do it.

The bars by the way, go all the way to roof height as its a multi-storey carpark which I understand someone once jumped off.
 
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