 What's up guys, so having your background out of focus is super popular nowadays, not only because it looks great, but also helps isolate the subject, allowing the viewer to focus their attention on the subject. One major difference between a mirrorless camera and a smartphone is the shallow depth of field. The Sony a7 III has a much larger sensor than the iPhone 11 Pro Max. The larger the sensor, the easier it is to achieve a shallow depth of field. Photos also have a very wide lens, which makes it harder to achieve a blurry background. If you want to have your subject in focus and the background out of focus, you would have to get very close to the subject. You could increase the shallow depth of field using a telephoto lens, but I find the difference very small. Now in this video, I will show you two ways how you can achieve a blurry background in your video. The first method is using a DOF adapter that enables you to mount a lens to your iPhone. The second method is more of a hack, which is using the free Focus Live app, which is only available for iOS users. By the way, all the gear mentioned will be in the video description below, as well as a timestamp if you want to skip or go back to a particular part of the video. Alright, let's first take a closer look at the Ulanzi DOF adapter. This adapter allows you to mount a DSLR lens onto your smartphone. So here's the difference between using the DOF adapter and without. As you can see, it separates the subject much better from the background than without the DOF adapter. Let me show you how to use the DOF adapter. This particular adapter works with Sony E-mounts for full frame lenses and doesn't come cheap at around $140. To be able to use the DOF adapter, you will need to get the Ulanzi smartphone case, which is bought separately. I got mine for the iPhone 11 Pro Max, which costs around $60. Now when rounding a lens, keep in mind that the lens you're using needs to be able to focus manually. The lenses that rely on electronics to focus are not compatible with this adapter. The key to achieving a blurry background is to pick a fast lens that has a wide aperture, something between a f0.9 to it, 2.8. Everything above 2.8 won't really give you a strong shallow depth of field. The lens I picked up and find produces a nice shallow depth of field is the Myki 25mm f1.8. I went for a wider lens since I also wanted to compare it with the Sony 28mm f2 that I frequently use for my talking head videos at home. I'm actually using it right now. Now you could also go with a different lens like a telephoto lens. That will definitely increase the shallow depth of field in your video. The Myki 25mm f1.8 costs around $75. So all in all, it costs me around $275, which isn't cheap. To set up the iPhone 11 Pro Max with the DOF adapter, I can simply place the iPhone into the cage, tighten the knob and secure it with the magnetic door. I then connected the lens with the DOF adapter and mounted it on the iPhone's wide lens. For this to work, you will need a third-party app. I will be using Filmic Pro in this example. When opening Filmic Pro, the image will be upside down. So in order to flip the image, you can go to the hardware settings and select 35mm adapter. You're able to use the circle reticle to auto-adjust your exposure, but what you can't do is use the square reticle to set autofocus, since you will have to manually focus on the lens. If you're unfamiliar with Filmic Pro, I have an in-depth tutorial on that which you can check out up here. Now, important is that you open your aperture as wide as possible to let enough light in because it will cut out some light when using the DOF adapter. I'm going to set the aperture to f1.8 and adjust the focus to where the subject is standing. You can also use the focus peaking to better set your focus. I don't recommend shooting handheld with the DOF adapter as it doesn't stabilize the footage. Maybe using it on a gimbal could give you better results. You also have to be careful and check and clean the inside of the DOF adapter regularly as it can produce dust particles, which is quickly visible in the image. Now you won't get your background as clean and blurry as with a mirrorless camera, but you can achieve a similar look. So here's a comparison between using the Sony 28mm at f2.8 and the iPhone 11 Pro Max using the Myki 25mm f1.8. I find it cool to be able to create a nice bokeh with your smartphone using the DOF adapter. Now the camera on the smartphone without using the adapter actually only provides a depth of field equivalent to an f14 aperture on a full-frame camera. Modern smartphones with enhanced bokeh effects actually rely on a software for more dramatic look, which leads us to our second method, namely using the Focus Live app. This is a more affordable option, it's a free app that you can download from the App Store which allows you to add a bokeh to your video. The app does a fairly good job of keeping the background out of focus and the subject in focus even as it moves. The way how it works is that you actually need to record the video first with the Focus Live app. It won't work if you record with your native camera app or any other video application. Once you did that, you can import the footage into the video editor of the Focus Live app and then add the blur in the background. So let me quickly guide you through the Focus Live app to create that background blur. So let's now look at the Focus Live app. I'm going to select it and if I want to record video using the Focus Live app, I'm going to select Take Portrait Video and basically anything that gets closer gets brighter and everything further away gets darker. The white area shows you what's in focus. So we're not going to go too deep into that. We're actually going to look at how you can edit your videos using the Focus Live app. So I'm going to select Edit Video and then I'm going to select the videos shot with the Focus Live app. So I'm going to select this one and I'm going to select this. I'm going to hit Edit and it's going to import it. I'm going to select the clip, the first one. And as you can see, there's a square that tracks George's face. So if I hit Play, it actually does a really great job of tracking his face. And I can select his face or the background and decide what I want to have in focus. So I'm going to select his face again and now I can select Aperture, Size. And this allows me to control the amount of blur. So if I increase the f-stop number, you will see that everything is in focus. If I decrease the f-stop number, it makes the background blurrier. So this actually looks very unnatural. So I'm going to keep it around like maybe six or so. You have to play around a bit with it. With focus, I can set the focus point. So I can either make the background very blurry or George. What's also cool about it is I can actually create a focus pool. We're going to do that by hitting the keyframe button and then moving the playhead a little bit over around here. And then I'm going to change the focus slider and pull it all the way to the left so the background is in focus. And as you can see, it automatically creates a keyframe. And when you play it back, you have this nice focus pool. Now here are some tips that I came up with when using the app to create bokeh in your video. The aperture of around f7.5 will give you the most natural background blur look. If you overdo it and go very low with the number, it can make it look unnatural. So make sure to not go too crazy on the background blur and do some fine tuning using the size and focus feature. It also works best if the subject is not too close to the camera. Getting too close will result in weird artifacts in your video. Also, you would want to shoot in good lighting conditions. This way, the software can better detect those contrast points, giving you a cleaner separation between the subject and the background. The Focus Live app currently doesn't support camera stabilization, but it will in the future. So try to keep your hands steady or even better use a tripod or a gimbal to avoid jerry movements in your shot. So to wrap this up, the first method of using the DOF adapter with a fast lens really adds quality to your videos, giving you a similar looking shallow depth of field like you see in DSLR cameras. But there are of course some imperfections. Do I find it necessary to have one? Not really. When filling with my iPhone, I want to keep it mobile. I want to be able to take out my phone and be ready to shoot. A setup like this would consume much more time, but I have to say that it was a lot of fun to shoot with it. And I do personally like the look of it as it is a stylistic choice as well. This is probably the cleanest option to achieving a high quality, shallow depth of field with your smartphone. And it might be a great option for talking head videos like these. I think that the Focus Live app has a lot of potential, at least until Apple releases a native portrait mode for video. The app isn't perfect, but for what it can do, it's pretty impressive and is a good and inexpensive way to have your background be out of focus. I think if done correctly, you could get away with it pretty well. Now, I'm sure that people wouldn't even notice it on a small screen. Let me know in the comment section below which method you prefer. Subscribe to my channel so that I can keep creating these awesome videos for you guys. By the way, if you're new to iPhone filmmaking, make sure to download my free iPhone filmmaking guide, which will help you find the right tools to get started with shooting high quality videos on your iPhone. You surely don't want to miss out on that. Follow me on Instagram, at Ben & Grace. And if you're looking for more mobile filmmaking tutorials, I got your back. Here are two great videos that will certainly help you improve your mobile filmmaking skills. Until then, take it easy, stay creative, and I will see you in the next video. Get that background nice and blown.