A75 and small DOF-Should I change camera?

[anastiebyte]

This issue of getting a small depth of field on digital compacts I see has been covered before. The problem is that this is a bit of a problem for me as I enjoy portrait photography a lot of the time.
No matter how hard I try the background remains in focus.
My local Jessops has a Canon G5 for £100 more than I paid for the A75 so my question is would the G5 have a narrower DOF than the A75 and therefore is it worth changing my camera or are they all the same at this price etc?
Thanks :D

[Fiberoptik]

Th issue of DOF is releated to the size of the image sensor, ccd, in your camera. There is no way around this other than dropping a grand for the Digital rebels (Those ccds are the same size as 35mm film) There are some tips though. Make sure you are at the telephoto end of your lens. Also, using the camera at wide angle and using the macro mode helps as well

[Don Schaeffer]

The problem is large depth of field, not small. The depth of field is inversely proportional to the focal length of the lens. Digicam lenses have short focal lengths compared to film cameras, so depth of field is always greater. The best thing to do is use your camera wide open (lowest F-stop), which reduces depth of field. And use long focal lengths (telephoto) lenses.

[abel]

i have a G5 and a S400 and they both lack in the area of being able to achieve a shallow depth of field at will. normally in order to creat that effect i have to use Macro mode or make sure the distance between the foreground/background objects are VERY far away

heres a couple ive tried.

http://www.nitrocross.com/images/pad/2004-04-Apr/20apr04a.jpg


http://www.nitrocross.com/images/pad/2004-04-Apr/23apr04a.jpg

i was very disappointed when i saw that the Portrait mode didnt yield a shallow depth of field like film cameras do etc.. oh well, guess i will have to venture into DSLRs... hehee

[pradeep1]

The problem is large depth of field, not small. The depth of field is inversely proportional to the focal length of the lens. Digicam lenses have short focal lengths compared to film cameras, so depth of field is always greater. The best thing to do is use your camera wide open (lowest F-stop), which reduces depth of field. And use long focal lengths (telephoto) lenses.

Yes, you can achieve the DOF you need by using this method. This is how I took the bumblebee photo in my portfolio. You will be able to get a nice blurred background and shallow depth of field with a G3/G5 because the lens can open up to f/2.0.