Good depth of field with s80?

[cmarcallen]

I'm an amateur here first off. I have been trying tweak my settings to get depth of field for portrait shots similiar to this: http://files.timaxe.com/blog/november04/sasha%20portrait.jpg

I can't seem to get the background out of focus anywhere near that no matter what. I do the lowest F stop possible and no luck. The only way that happens is if I'm zoomed in on something close, but otherwise, I can't do much to blur the background. Even the auto portrait setting seems unimpressive.

Do I need the lens adapter kit and any special lens to pull this off? Or is there something I'm missing.:rolleyes:

[svpworld]

Compacts and bridge cameras tend to feature much smaller sensors than Digital SLR cameras, hence why they cost less. What this means is the true focal length of the lens on compacts is much smaller, usually well below 60mm. The plus side is that this results in a large multiplier factor (due to small sensor size) which gives you big zooms when compared to 35mm lenses... but at the expense of having less control over depth of field. As you rightly say to get a nice out of focus background, you have to zoom in and position your subject quite a distance from the lens.. and then the background quite a distance behind your subject. You will also find the aperture makes only a subtle difference, again it tends to be limited on compacts .. usually from about f2.4 to f8.

Not much you can do really except make use of your zoom lens! You can get really shallow depth of field if you add a macro converter, although not much use for portrait shots! Of course its not all bad news, these cameras are ideal for what they are intended for, as everything is close to being in focus and they take great landscape photos. I use the Canon S3, same problem but at least its huge 12x zoom lens gives a degree of background blur provided I stand well back from my subjects! One of the reasons I would like a D-SLR!

Of course you can always use post processing and add the blur afterwards, probably the best solution unless you get a filter of some kind.

Simon

[DavidW]

As Simon says, selective focus is very hard with a compact due to the small focal lengths used and the small sensors.

Depth of field is related to aperture, focal distance and shutter speed. You're right to open the aperture as far as you can, and you should also attempt to place the background as far as you can behind the subject so as to place it further outside the depth of field. However, you will still have limited ability to throw the background out of focus on a compact, unless you're shooting at macro distances.

This is really a job for a DSLR and a fast lens, I'm afraid. Modern compacts are great, but there are some tasks that are only really possible with a DSLR. Another alternative is Photoshop CS2's Lens Blur filter, or some similar post-processing technique.



David

[cmarcallen]

Thanks for the replies!

Do you guys think a telephoto lens like this would help?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&kw=CATCDC10&is=REG&Q=&O=productlist&sku=331661