COMMENTS
Margaret: Grass shot with minimum aperture (manual focusing!).

COMMENTS
Margaret: Same shot with maximum aperture. A very significant difference.

COMMENTS
Margaret: Back with review of old shots. This frog had manual focusing. Everything else is out of focus.
Q. Is the focal length main factor for blurry background in this photo?

AL: Wow, the detail on mr Froggie is fantastic. Depending on how close you were, or far away, focusing on the subject would diffuse the background along with the f stop. If you are very close to the subject even with a small aperture opening like f22, the background might still go out of focus, especially true if you get to the macro range of course.
Excellent examples on those first two.

COMMENTS
Margaret: This orchid was not shot in Macro as I originally thought till I checked the Exif.
Q. What would be the significance of Sports setting in this case?

AL: A sports setting generally sets the camera at a high shutter speed, like 1/500th of a second.

COMMENTS
Margaret: In this shot I was trying to get everything in focus but the church is slightly blurred.
Q. What would be the best setting in this case?

AL: The church background. Out of focus slightly because you used f4.0, f8.0 to f16 would have solved that issue unless you were quite close to the foremost sunflowers and were manually focusing on the ones nearest to you. In my advanced class we get into more detail on where to focus to get the entire scene sharp such as focusing manually 1/3rd of the way into that scene.

COMMENTS
Margaret: In this case the background is blurred but not very strongly. I thought the shape of the blurred buds provides continuity to those in front.
Q. Does this idea work or does it make the photo too busy?

AL: The bud shot is exactly the way I would have shot it, not too busy at all.

COMMENTS
Margaret: I was struggling with the right focus in this photo. I guess it came out too busy.

AL: You got the entire scene sharp in the BC image and I don't think that is too busy at all.

COMMENTS
Margaret: Again the problem with the right focus on the foreground and background.
Q. Is the slightly blurred background OK or should I have changed the settings to get everything in focus? Would it be possible in any case?

AL: You want the background not to be sharp but yet provide a locational factor as to where you are possibly. Moving back from the subject, not zooming in, and using say f22 to f30 would sharpen the entire scene but then you get away from the subject being the major part of the attention. I really like this image. I would also have shot one more , without the #35 being in the scene. How was the wine by the way.