Hi,
The obj material is a particular material that is designed to match as closely as possible the materials included in obj files. When an obj file is imported, all objects have an obj material assigned to them.
Can you provide an image showing the blurred image for the sun/sky?
The medium is the type of material that is under the surface, which could be air (vacuum) the case of an empty sphere, or dielectric in the case of a glass sphere, etc. We are planned to publish a tutorial about it.
For an explanation of the material parameters, please look at the “Material Basics” tutorial.
For depth of field, change the “lens radius” in the camera node (renderer->camera->depth_of_field)
For instancing, we’ll soon publish a tutorial.
It looks like it’s the depth of field. Click on the IntegratorRenderer Node, then in the attribute editor on the right go to the camera and set the “lens_radius” parameter to 0.
It could also be the filter that is too wide. Did you change the filter in some way?