Does A75 allow for shallow depth of field?

[noobie]

Does A75 allow for "proper" shallow depth of field? ie portrait shots, person in focus, background all blurry? or is it a bit of a marketing gimmick and can't really do it?

The Canon site says it can and has this picture
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/app/images/d_camera/Auto.jpg
Which looks a bit too good re depth of field - should I be suspicious?

If it cant do it, what about the A80,85,95 etc?

And if not again, which cheap(ish) camera would allow me to do this?

Thanks

[ReF]

really doesn't seem like a typical result, though I believe it is possible to get something like that with a proper setting (not camera setting). if your background was very far way and your subject was pretty close to the cam, it can probably be done. notice how just the upper half of the people fill up almost the entire frame (close to cam) and that you cannot see the ground so you really don't know how far the trees are. If the ground were visibe in the shot then i'm sure many things between the subject and the trees would be in focus. I have the A80 and although I do most of my shooting at F8.0, the example photo is not a typical result when I actually do shoot at F2.8. usually at f2.8 the subject is not in focus but is does not have that nice smooth blurry look to it. when photos are shrunken down to thumbnail size you might think the background is actually in focus. I'm not aware of any consumer cam with a really shallow depth of field.
as far as i know, the A__ series is pretty much the same in this respect. Your example pic looks like something only typical of SLR's.

[noobie]

Thanks for the input Ref. Guy at the camera shop I spoke to today said something similar.

[Alnath]

THIS (http://alnath.fotopic.net/p7127663.html) was taken with an A80 and has not been altered in anyway if that helps you at all.

[noobie]

Wow, that's really good - exactly the sort of thing I'm after. Does yours take portraits with the same effect? (I guess the the people will be sightly further back than the flower which is close to the camera)

A75 and A80 - pretty similar functionality are they? The reason I ask is because in the UK, there's a £100 price difference between them.

I couldn't help having a noise around your website - do you think the A75/A80 can take a similar picture to the seagull picture (http://alnath.fotopic.net/p9666166.html) you took with your G6?

BTW, the mini picture in my first post was taken off the product page of the A75 on canon's website.

[D70FAN]

Wow, that's really good - exactly the sort of thing I'm after. Does yours take portraits with the same effect? (I guess the the people will be sightly further back than the flower which is close to the camera)

A75 and A80 - pretty similar functionality are they? The reason I ask is because in the UK, there's a £100 price difference between them.

BTW, the mini picture in my first post was taken off the product page of the A75 on canon's website.

I think if you use the "portrait" setting (scene mode select) you can get the desired effect.

[jamison55]

That portrait would be tough to pull off with the A75/A80 because the subjects are so large that they can't get close enough to the camera to really seperate them from the background via DOF. The thistle that Alnath submitted is much smaller than the people in Canon's sample and I supect it was only inches from the camera lens when he took the shot (and almost any PnS can achieve shallow DOF in those conditions!). When I started to get serious about portrait photography, I had an A80. I eventually got acceptable shallow DOF effects by attaching a teleconvertor, shooting at full zoom at the largest aperture allowed, and making sure my backgrounds were more than 20 feet behind the subject, but even that blurring was nothing like the DOF in the Canon example! I love Canon products, but shame on them for misleading marketing...

If you want the shallow DOF, but don't want to spring for a DSLR, I suggest either one of the UZ's that everyone loves on this board (Canon S1, Pana FZ's), or a trip through PS. Now that I shoot events semi-professionally I find that I am more concerned about focus than shallow DOF, so I tend to use a smaller aperture on my DSLR more often. Ocassionally, however, the subject will be slightly less sharp than the background. I've used Gaussian Blur to rescue photos where this occurs by simulating an aout of focus background, making my foreground subject appear more in focus...

[Alnath]

Wow, that's really good - exactly the sort of thing I'm after. Does yours take portraits with the same effect? (I guess the the people will be sightly further back than the flower which is close to the camera)

A75 and A80 - pretty similar functionality are they? The reason I ask is because in the UK, there's a £100 price difference between them.

I couldn't help having a noise around your website - do you think the A75/A80 can take a similar picture to the seagull picture (http://alnath.fotopic.net/p9666166.html) you took with your G6?

BTW, the mini picture in my first post was taken off the product page of the A75 on canon's website.

This http://alnath.fotopic.net/p6224662.html and this http://alnath.fotopic.net/p6224675.html and this http://alnath.fotopic.net/p6224663.html were taken with an A80, the second one also shows a blured rope in the background and that eagle is a lot bigger than the teasle was, it was about as big as a small child

EDIT:

This http://alnath.fotopic.net/p5030336.html was also on an A80

[ReF]

oops, I mean: usually at f2.8 the background is not in focus but is does not have that nice smooth blurry look to it.
NOT: usually at f2.8 the subject is not in focus but is does not have that nice smooth blurry look to it.

Wow, I can't believe there's such a huge price difference between the A75 and the 85 in the UK. kinda makes it not worth the extra money for the additional megapixel. well, i guess it depends on how seriously you take photography. maybe if you're really serious, you could save what you would've spent on the A-series and go for something better like G6. just a thought