I'm totally new to photography and need your help.  I've read much about ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed. I know to get a blurred backround: use a wide aperture. Also I know the distance between camera and object is important.   But every single time I've tried to get a blurred background, I've achieved nothing! I was thinking maybe it's not possible to have this effect with a 18-55mm STM lens at all. This is on a Canon 70D  Is that right? If not, what is your recommended setting to get a blurred background?  Best shot I could get is this. f/5.6, 1/250, ISO auto:
I'm currently using an entry-level DSLR with 18-55mm lens and having great trouble trying to creating a blurred background effect in my photos. Now matter what aperture or shutter speed I choose, I'm not able to get it.  There's a general question about , but what specific things can I do to get this effect with an entry-level lens?
How do I turn a String into a InputStreamReader in java? How can I transform a String value into an InputStreamReader? Why didn't James' love and sacrifice for Lily protect her? We know that Harry survived Voldemort's killing curse because Lily loved him so much that she sacrificed herself in an attempt to protect him. This resulted in a very powerful charm that pretty much rendered Harry immune to Voldemort (until Voldemort figured out the work-around). Then there's this passage describing that night:  [Voldemort] was over the threshold as James came sprinting down the hall. It was easy, too easy, he had not even picked up his wand ... &quot;Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off -&quot; Hold him off, without a wand in his hand! ... He laughed before casting the curse ... &quot;Avada Kedavra!&quot; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Chapter 17: Bathilda's Secret  So James Potter, fully aware that he was sacrificing himself (he said &quot;I'll hold him off,&quot; not &quot;I'll get rid of him&quot;) ran to face Voldemort because of his love for Lily and Harry. This seems to be very similar to how Lily tried to protect Harry from Voldemort even though she knew she would die. It seems to me that the same charm should have been cast upon Lily when James died, but just moments later Voldemort killed her too. Apparently James' sacrifice did not result in a charm that protected Lily, even though he did it from love for her and Harry. Why is this? Was something different in the circumstances? Configure HAProxy to include host headers for different backends I am exploring the use of HAProxy as a balancer in front of a set of web apis that run on IIS.   node1.myapp.mycompany.com node2.myapp.mycomapny.com   We are currently using Host Headers to correctly resolve the right web application on IIS.  For example, we may have otherapp.mycompany.com running on the same server/port, but using Host Headers IIS knows which one to serve up.  My initial attempt at HAProxy left me with 404 errors, because I was not including the host headers in my request, and so IIS was serving back the default site bound to the given IP, and not resolving by host name.    The fix left me with something like this:  frontend localnodes     bind *:80     mode http     default_backend nodes  backend nodes     mode http     balance roundrobin     option forwardfor     reqirep ^Host: Host:\ node1.myapp.mycompany.com     server web01 node1.myapp.mycompany.com:80   This works great for a single backend, but I am left scracthing my head on how to include the correct host headers depending on which backend is serving up the request:  backend nodes     mode http     balance roundrobin     option forwardfor     reqirep ^Host: Host:\ node1.myapp.mycompany.com     server web01 node1.myapp.mycompany.com:80     server web02 node2.myapp.mycompany.com:80   The above does not work whenever node2 is used because it doesn't resolve correctly in IIS (node2 in this case is on a different server, and therefore different IP.  In fact, if they were running on the same server/ip I suspect the request work "work", but they would all be served by node1 per the host header).     Is it possible to set the host based on the url of the backend used to serve up the request? If so, this implies my checks also need to provide the correct host header based on backend, how would that be done?   Edit: Am using HA-Proxy version 1.7.9 2017/08/18  Let me give this just a little more background.  We used to have just myapp.mycompany.com serving up api requests.  We need to expand it.  Our clients will still call myapp.mycompany.com, but that will just point to the HAProxy, which will balance it out to node1.myapp.mycompany.com and node2.myapp.mycompany.com.  Our current server configurations have us binding a single IP address on each server, so we use host headers to resolve. Get terms that contain posts that in turn belong to other terms? So I have custom taxonomy called "shape" and another one called "color". If I want to get the list terms under shape that contain posts that are also present in terms under color, how do I do that?   Example, I have a post under custom post type toy called Ball which is present in both shape Circle and color Red. I want to retrieve the term name Circle via $wpdb query. I'd like to emphasize that I want to retrieve the list of terms and not the posts. $\mathbb Z^n/\langle (a,...,a) \rangle \cong \mathbb Z^{n-1} \oplus \mathbb Z/\langle a \rangle$ How do I base64 encode (decode) in C? I have binary data in an unsigned char variable. I need to convert them to PEM base64 in c. I looked in openssl library but i could not find any function. Does any body have any idea? Are units in English singular or plural? How to get Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168 work on Ubuntu 16.04? Is it possible to scale specific apps on Windows 10? Is there an easy way to calculate the residue at one of the poles of a rational expression of the form $\frac{1}{1+z^n}$?  I end up having to add a bunch of polar-form complex numbers in the denominator which I have no idea how to do except to convert them to rectangular coordinates, which becomes really messy.  I feel like there ought to be simple pattern/rule for such a canonical expression. Notification that ‘someone might be watching what you browse’ I got a notification on my iPhone. The notification reads     Someone might be watching what you browse. Follow 3 steps to encrypt your web traffic and change your IP address.   What does this mean? How do I execute a string containing Python code in Python? How do I execute a string containing Python code in Python? Can't transfer purchases from iPhone to iTunes in iOS 9 Why do we use ./filename to execute a file in linux?  Why not just enter it like other commands gcc, ls etc... Are there any guidelines for converting cooking recipes from Regular Ovens to Convection? I was looking to buy a Convection Oven and wanted to know if there are any general differences in baking methods between the two. Movie Clip On Plane In blender cycles render engine, how do I put a movie clip on a plane so it displays the video? I want the video to be on the plane if there is a way. How to repeat a string a variable number of times in C++? I want to insert 'n' spaces (or any string) at the beginning of a string in C++. Is there any direct way to do this using either std::strings or char* strings?  E.g. in Python you could simply do  &gt;&gt;&gt; "." * 5 + "lolcat" '.....lolcat' Why does \cal{M}_n give “M>”? Why are there so many different ways to measure disk usage? When I sum up the sizes of my files, I get one figure. If I run du, I get another figure. If I run du on all the files on my partition, it doesn't match what df claims is used. Why are there so many different figures for the total size of my files? Can't computers add?  Speaking of adding: when I add the “Used” and “Available” columns of df, I don't get the total figure. And that total figure is smaller than the size of my partition. And if I add up my partition sizes I don't get my disk size! What gives? Detecting an undefined object property What's the best way of checking if an object property in JavaScript is undefined?