Lots of photographers love selective focus — blurring the background of an image with a single subject, such as a portrait, can really make that subject pop. The most widely understood method of getting a blurry background is to use a wide aperture, however there many more things you can do to increase this effect. Here’s the rundown:

1. Choose your widest aperture.
2. Choose your longest focal length.
3. Bring your subject close, and put a lot of distance between it/them and the background.

Choose your widest aperture

Depth of field decreases as you enlarge the hole through which light passes into your camera and onto the sensor/film. This setting is your aperture. If you are not familiar this, here’s a crash course: lower f/ numbers = wider apertures. f/3.5 is wider than f/22. Choose the lowest number supported by your lens. In order to change this setting, you need to be in either Aperture Priority mode (Av on Canon, A on Nikon) or Manual (M) mode.

Choose your longest focal length

You can take advantage of telephoto compression to decrease depth of field and increase background blur. Wider lenses emphasize the distance between your subject and background while telephoto lenses compress them together. So, given the choice between a 24mm lens at f/1.4 and a 135mm lens at f/2, the 135mm lens is capable of producing images with a blurrier background in many situations. A kit lens that does f/5.6 at 55mm will produce a little bit of blur while a 300mm lens at f/5.6 can get you a great deal of blur.

Increase the distance between subject and background

The farther away your background is from the subject, the blurrier it will be. Get the subject as close to the lens as possible while still being able to focus and get your desired framing, and put as much distance between it and the background as you can.

By combining all of these things together — widest aperture, longest focal length, and greatest distance between subject and background — you’ll be able to maximize the amount of background blur in your photos.