depth of field

ok.. stupid question:

what would me a good setting to have when taking a portrait when i want the background to be out of focus? using 50 iso? and a slave flash

g3 owner

f3.0 at full tele.

Difficult to get good out-of-focus (bokeh, I think the proffesionals call it) with the dinky little lens on the G5).

Every time this comes up, i feel obligated to point out that a shallow depth of field at larger apertures, while often exploited by primitive photographers to great artistic effect, could be considered a fault of 'early' cameras that has nearly been eliminated by today's superior technology and miniaturization.

: )

Bryan

also, get as close as you can to the subject (but stay at full tele) and keep the subject as far away from the background as possible, though that's sort of obvious.

Bryan

Bryan, I am afraid that not all camera manufacturers have been successful in eliminating this fault.
As an example, Canon could not sufficiently improve and modernize their lenses, e.g. the 85/1.2L or 135/2.0 L lenses.

Although they are quite pricey at >US$ 1,000, those lenses still display this very annoying fault

Best regards,
Andy (primitive photographer )

see, that's your problem, your lens is too big!

B.

he he..

I had the same thought when I went through my first G5 photos - they didn't really seem to stand out at all. Then I realised there was so much less difference in focus quality than my 35mm photos.

I find with a D-SLR I am often now facing the reverse senario - how do I increase the DOF? At close range with a 50 F1.8 the DOF can be really narrow!

I also still have my trusty G2! Some things are just simpler with P&S... while other thing are trickier. Just have to figure out the work arounds, if any.