Canon A720IS Depth of Field

[mrsr71]

Hello - I'm new to the forum :D

I’m trying to reduce the depth of field and I’ve followed the instructions in the manual by setting the shooting mode to AV and adjusting the aperture to 2.8

I’ve shot several photos and the backgrounds are “in focus”. They should be “blurred”. What am I doing wrong? Help!

Thanks…Dan

[Jason25]

This is harder to do with a P&S camera. The most effective way is to zoom all the way in on your subject, and have your background far away from the subject. Keep the lens wide open (as close to 2.8 as possible).

[griptape]

Cameras with small sensors are very limited in their ability to create bokeh. Zooming in, being as close to your subject as possible, with the background as far as possible from the lens is the only way to even begin to try to get the same background blur you'd get from a camera with a larger sensor.

[Graystar]

I've tested this on my A710 and I found that there's no difference in background blur between wide and full zoom. That is to say, that when you adjust your distance from the subject such that the subject appears the same size in both the wide angle shot and the zoomed in shot, the background is blurred about the same. Of course, the size of the background is different, but the blur is about the same. The only thing that helps blur is to increase the distance between the subject and the background.

Of course, getting it closer always helps, but that makes the subject larger in the frame and that may not be desirable.

Even on something like a head shot, where you can get in close, you need 10 ft behind the subject for significant blur.


You gotta be really close to the kitty to fill this much of the frame, and the background is only moderately blurred. The white thing on the counter is a juicer, which is about 7-8ft back. Lens was around 60 mm, f/3.2. Kitty was about 1 ft from the camera.

http://home.nyc.rr.com/graystar/kitty.jpg
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