This is a wonderful animal portrait with the hawk looking directly down the barrel of the lens and is full of sublime autumnal colours and fallen leaves that perfectly match the bird's feathers. Edward's square framing works terrifically well, placing the subject right in the middle of his composition making for an unmissable shot. Great work!
1,833 Images entered
972 Photographers
Doru's captured an excellent sandpiper shot with it bathed in a fantastic golden light and moving towards the camera creating strong eye contact. He's also managed to get down low to be eye level with his subject for a more intimate angle and this has helped him achieve a mirror reflection of his subject in the water. He's also blurred the background beautifully with a wide aperture of f/6.3 at 600mm. Top work!
Julie's shot of this butterfly is wonderfully sharp and uses a shallow depth of field to blur the background. Her background is also much darker than her bright yellow focal point so helps the butterfly pop out of the scene and acts as a natural vignette. Props to Julie for taking the time to plant plants that attract the insects that she wants to photograph to her garden - very clever!
Nick's done a stellar job at isolating this beautiful gannet from its background with a long telephoto 500mm lens and wide aperture of f/5.6. His focus on the gannet's eye is spot-on and the lovely shallow depth-of-field has blurred the foreground and background into a fantastic wash of colour making sure the gannet gets the viewer's full attention. Getting down low so that he was eye-level also makes for a much more intimate wildlife portrait. Great job!
This is an outstanding autumnal portrait from Clementina. We love the close-up intimate camera angle from using a telephoto lens and the lovely bokeh circles in the background from the leaves dappled in light using a wide aperture of f/2.8.. The focus on her model's eyes is super sharp and the background is nicely defocused. Great job!
This image is wonderfully minimal with the blue damselfly popping right out of its gorgeous orange and red background. The focal point is perfectly sharp and the background is nicely blurred due to a wide aperture of f/5.6 and macro images inherently have a shallow depth-of-field too. Keep up the great work!
Apertures don't get much wider than the f/1.2 value used here by Kseniya on this lupine flower. We love how she's used the curving flower stalk to lead a trail through the image that guides the eye. The shallow depth-of-field in this shot makes for a wonderfully gentle and soft aesthetic and has blurred the background into a brilliant wash of colour.
Henrik's taken a beautiful macro shot of this butterfly which is equally pin-sharp and packed with incredible swirls of colourful blur all around his focal point. The red and green leaves compliment each other wonderfully and are the perfect background for his butterfly portrait which has a fantastic abstract edge.
There's some fantastic golden hour lighting catching the puffin in this portrait. We love the diffused blue background from using a wide aperture and the pink flowers in the foreground that have also been nicely defocused with a shallow depth-of-field. The puffin's pose is interesting with a feather in its beak and is positioned well in the composition with it looking into the space on the left of the frame. Great work!
This is a wonderful portrait of a kestrel, Edward's done brilliantly well to get close enough with his 100-400mm lens to achieve a frame-filling shot and has blurred the background beautifully with a wide aperture. The colour palette is subdued and minimal so the viewer's eye is instantly drawn to the bird's eye and beak which are razor sharp. Great job!
Marco's caught a brilliant expression on this young boy's face looking directly down the barrel of the lens and the low golden hour lighting is very dramatic too. We like the use of the prop he's posing with resting on his shoulder which acts as a lead-in line and has been blurred with a wide aperture so your eyes are pulled instantly to the focal point. The wider 35mm focal length also helps add a little context by including some of the surrounding location.
Graham's done brilliantly well to capture the exact moment a kingfisher has come up with its catch here. His focus is spot-on and there's no trace of camera-shake in sight either due to his rapid shutter speed. Our only slight issue with this shot is that the background is a little flat and lacking colour and that all-important bokeh which would have made this shot as good as it could possibly be. Keep up the great work!
Chris has caught this red squirrel with at a brilliant moment as it's looking up towards the camera. Getting low to the ground and eye-level with his subject has made the shot much more intimate and helped include some of the forest background which he's blurred nicely with a wide f/5 aperture. Great job!
Brief
See more contest details
In this Canon-only contest we're looking for images packed with brilliant bokeh, blurry backgrounds and shallow depth of field. Any image with a blurry background and sharp foreground is fair game so while portraits, wildlife and macro are all obvious contenders don't be afraid to think outside the box and experiment with wide apertures in other genres. The judge's top 10 pictures will appear in PhotoPlus magazine with our judge's top choice taking home the Manfrotto Pixi tripod prize. *See 'The brief in detail' tab for more instructions.*
Meet the expert judge
This is a lovely macro shot from Lucy who used a wide aperture of f/4 and a shallow depth-of-field to blur the white petals around the wasp into a bright vignette that draws the eye right into the centre of the image. She also focus stacked 17 images to make sure the wasp's head was perfectly sharp - great job!
