Sony a6000 Background Blur: Aperture, Distance and Lenses

To blur the background on a Sony a6000, use aperture priority, set the smallest f-number your lens allows, get close to your subject and move your subject far away from whatever is behind them. With the 16-50mm kit lens, zoom all the way to 50mm, where the widest setting is f/5.6, and you get the softest background that lens can make.

Three things that blur a background

A blurry background comes from three things working together: how wide the lens opens, how far things are from each other, and how much you zoom in. Think of them as three volume knobs. Turn up one and you get a little blur. Turn up all three and the background melts into soft color.

You do not need a special mode or an app for this. You need to know which knobs to turn, and the a6000 gives you the controls to turn them.

Aperture: the pupil of your camera's eye

The aperture is a hole inside your lens. It works like the pupil of your eye. In a dark room your pupil gets big. In bright sun it gets small. The lens does the same thing, and you get to choose the size.

The size is written as an f-number, like f/3.5 or f/8. Here is the tricky part: a small number means a big opening. Think of f/3.5 as a door swung wide open, and f/22 as a door barely cracked.

A big opening gives you a thin slice of sharpness. That slice is called depth of field. Picture a loaf of bread. At f/22 most of the loaf looks sharp. At f/3.5 only one slice is sharp, and everything in front of it and behind it turns soft. That soft, creamy look is often called bokeh.

The kit lens opens to f/3.5 at its widest zoom setting (16mm) and to f/5.6 at its longest (50mm). It closes down as far as f/22 at 16mm and f/36 at 50mm. For blur, you want the small end of those numbers.

Distance: close to you, far from the wall

Distance is the free knob. It costs nothing, and it often does more than a new lens.

There are two distances to think about. The first is you to your subject. The closer you are, the thinner that slice of sharpness gets. The second is your subject to the background. If a person stands right against a brick wall, the wall stays almost as sharp as they are. Ask them to take ten big steps away from the wall, toward you, and the wall starts to soften.

The kit lens can get quite close. Imaging Resource found that at 50mm it can fill the frame with an area of 3.62 x 2.41 inches (92 x 61 millimeters), which they called slightly larger than average for a kit lens. That is a small area, roughly the size of a playing card. A flower, a coffee cup or a ring shot that close, with the background far behind it, will give you real blur even with the kit lens.

Focal length: zoom in and step back

Focal length is how zoomed in you are. 16mm is wide, like looking out a big window. 50mm is tighter, like looking through a paper towel tube.

Zooming in makes the background look bigger behind your subject, and the blur gets bigger with it. So instead of standing close at 16mm, zoom to 50mm and take a few steps back until your subject fills the frame the way you want.

On the kit lens there is a small trade. At 50mm the widest opening is f/5.6 instead of f/3.5. For most portraits the zoom helps more than the slightly smaller opening hurts, so try 50mm first. Then take the same photo at 16mm and compare the two. That little side-by-side teaches you more than any chart.

Set up your a6000 for background blur, step by step

Digital Camera World describes two dials on top of the a6000: one for the shooting mode (automatic, semi-automatic or manual) and another that changes shutter speed or aperture depending on the mode you are in. Those two dials are all you need.

1. Turn the mode dial to aperture priority, one of the semi-automatic modes. You pick the aperture, and the camera picks the shutter speed for you.
2. Turn the control dial until the f-number is as small as it will go. On the kit lens that is f/3.5 at 16mm and f/5.6 at 50mm.
3. Zoom to the longest focal length your lens has.
4. Move your subject away from the background. More space is better.
5. Walk closer to your subject until they fill the frame the way you like.
6. Put your focus point on the most important spot, usually the eye closest to you, and take the photo.

If the photo comes out too bright or too dark, the blur is not the problem. That is exposure, and you can balance it with ISO or shutter speed. The exposure triangle guide shows how aperture, shutter speed and ISO share the work.

What the kit lens can do

The a6000 is usually sold with the Sony E PZ 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS kit lens. Digital Camera World notes the same lens is still bundled with newer cameras like the Sony ZV-E10. So a lot of people are learning blur on this exact lens.

Kit lens setting	Widest aperture (most blur)	Smallest aperture (least blur)
16mm (zoomed out)	f/3.5	f/22
50mm (zoomed in)	f/5.6	f/36

Those figures come from Imaging Resource's spec sheet, which also lists a 7-blade circular aperture. The blades are the little curtains inside the lens that form the opening.

Reviewers are honest about this lens. The Imaging Resource reviewer wrote that it is not outstanding optically, but called it a very competent, versatile and portable kit lens. Digital Camera World called it smaller, cheaper and inferior next to the Zeiss 16-70mm f/4 they pictured on the camera. The Imaging Resource reviewer also found the power zoom a little difficult to control precisely. If the zoom slides past the framing you wanted, that is the lens, not you. Small, gentle movements on the zoom help.

The big lesson: the kit lens can blur a background, but it needs help from distance. Get close, zoom in and give the background room.

Lenses that make background blur easier

Digital Camera World points out that you can buy the A6000 body only and choose from the large range of E-mount lenses now available. These are the lenses reviewers paired with the camera.

Lens	Zoom range	Aperture in the name	What reviewers said
Sony E PZ 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS	16-50mm	f/3.5-5.6	Competent and portable, not outstanding optically (Imaging Resource)
Sony E 18-135mm F3.5-5.6	18-135mm	F3.5-5.6	Much longer zoom range, better than the average superzoom; slightly front-heavy on the camera (Digital Camera World)
Zeiss 16-70mm f/4	16-70mm	f/4	Pictured on the A6000 as the step above the kit lens (Digital Camera World)
FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS	70-200mm	F4	Reasonably light, fast and silent focus, comfortable on the A6000 (Imaging Resource)

Sources for the table: Imaging Resource on the kit lens and the 70-200mm, and Digital Camera World on the 18-135mm and the Zeiss.

Which one helps most with blur

Look at two things: how far the lens zooms, and how wide it opens. The Sony E 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 reaches much further than the kit lens. Zoomed in at the long end, the background gets magnified a lot, which makes this a sensible next step if you want blur and reach in one lens.

The Zeiss 16-70mm f/4 lists a single f/4 aperture in its name, compared with the kit lens's f/5.6 at 50mm, and it zooms a little further.

The FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS goes much further still. The Imaging Resource reviewer shot almost 3,000 pictures with it on the A6000, mostly action and sports, and found it easy to support and completely usable on the small body, despite the common idea that big lenses feel unbalanced on small cameras. It is a big step, and you do not need it to learn blur.

What to look for when you shop

When you compare lenses for blur, check the smallest f-number first. A lower number means a bigger opening and a thinner slice of focus. Many photographers add a prime lens with a small f-number as a second lens for portraits. Whether you pick Sony's own lenses or another brand, judge them the same way: the widest opening, the focal length you want, and the weight you are happy to carry all day. Make sure any lens you buy is made for Sony E-mount.

Focus matters more when the background is soft

Here is the part that surprises people. When the slice of sharpness is thin, a small focus miss shows. You aim for the eye, the camera grabs the ear, and the face looks soft. That is not a broken camera. It is a sign you are getting real blur, and it is a skill you will sharpen with practice.

The a6000's autofocus is quick. Imaging Resource measured full-autofocus shutter lag of about 0.15 second in both Single-area (Center) and Multi-area (Wide) modes with the kit lens. Their bottom line praised blazing fast AF speeds and a very fast burst mode that supports continuous autofocus. Digital Camera World lists that burst at 11fps.

So speed is rarely the issue. Choosing the spot is. In Wide mode the camera decides what to focus on, and it may not choose the face. In Center mode you decide, by placing the middle of the frame on the eye. For people who move, a short burst gives you several chances to catch the sharp frame.

If your photos look soft all over, not just in the background, the a6400 blurry photos guide covers common causes on a later camera in the same line.

Light, ISO and dark corners

Opening the aperture wide has a bonus. A bigger opening lets in more light, so the camera does not need to raise ISO as much. That matters on the a6000.

Imaging Resource found its JPEGs very clean up to ISO 400, with a somewhat painted look starting to show in flat areas at ISO 1,600. Digital Camera World said it gives very good results up to ISO 400 to 800, but drops off more markedly than its rivals at higher settings. So the wide aperture you choose for blur also helps keep your pictures clean.

Wide open, lenses can also show vignetting. Imaging Resource called wide open the worst-case scenario for most lenses and showed the a6000's Lens Shading Compensation brightening the corners, with the setting on Auto by default. They also noted the a6000 bakes that correction into RAW files, so turn it off if you plan to fix the corners yourself in an editor. If you shoot JPEG and like how your photos look, you can leave it alone.

If you came looking for a background defocus button

If you searched for a background defocus button, you may have a ZV-E10 or ZV-E10 II in mind. The reviews behind this guide describe the a6000's controls as a mode dial and a control dial, and they mention no one-press blur button. That is fine. You get the same kind of result by opening the aperture yourself, and you learn exactly why it works.

The same three knobs work for video. Digital Camera World notes the a6000 does not record 4K video, and Imaging Resource lists its video ISO as going up to 12,800.

If you own one of the vlogging cameras, the ZV-E10 background defocus guide and the ZV-E10 II background defocus guide walk through the button. If you shoot an a6400, see the a6400 background blur guide.

A ten-minute practice

Put a mug on a table near a window, with the far side of the room behind it. Take three photos in aperture priority with the smallest f-number your lens allows:

1. Zoomed out to 16mm, standing close to the mug.
2. Zoomed in to 50mm, stepping back until the mug fills the frame the same way.
3. Zoomed in to 50mm again, this time with the mug moved further from the wall behind it.

Lay the three photos side by side. You will see each knob doing its job. Any shot that misses focus is useful too: it shows you how thin that slice of sharpness really is. For more short lessons like this one, sign up for the thecamera.school newsletter.