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Question: Focusing A Canon Powershot A590IS!?
I recently got a new camera!.
And i've seen some people focus it on one spot and the rest of the photograph is blurrred,how can i get that on my camera!?
What settings do i go to!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Thanks for asking so I can post this answer, which I haven't used for a couple of weeks!. I thought maybe everyone had figured this one out or something!.

Depth of Field

It's going to be darn hard to "de-focus" too much using a digital camera while keeping the main subject in sharp focus!. The smaller the sensor, the greater depth of field you will have!. Generally speaking, the smaller the camera, the smaller the sensor!. Most of the pictures you take with a digital camera are quite sharp from near to far distances and there is a reason for that which I will explain!.

While we speak in terms of the 35 mm equivalency of digital lenses, don't forget that the digital sensors are usually smaller than a full-format 35 mm frame!. Most of the more popular point and shoot cameras have the smaller sensors!. It's only about 5 mm wide and 4 mm high!. The 3X lens required to cover that angle of view is an ACTUAL 6-17 mm zoom lens!. At these focal lengths, the background is going to almost always be in pretty sharp focus!.

In other words, if you WANT to defocus the background, you are going to have to work pretty hard at it!. You would have to zoom to the longer end of the lens and set the aperture open as wide as it will go, if your camera even allows you to control the aperture, and get pretty close to your main subject while having the background a fair distance away!.

Put your subjects quite a distance in front of any background that will be visible in your photo!. You could use a garden of flowers and stand your subjects 20 yards or so in front of them!. Try the portrait mode to shift things towards a larger aperture, zoom the lens out all the way, and move YOURSELF backwards or forwards in order to frame the picture as you would like it!. In summary, you want to use a longer telephoto length, position yourself as close as you can to the main subject to compose properly, and place the main subject as far from the background that you wish to have out of focus as you possibly can!.

The bigger the sensor, the easier it will be to achieve pleasing bokeh!. This means moving to a dSLR, which all have sensors about 20 times bigger than the typical P&S digicam!. If you want to really go for brokeh (very bad pun intended), you can get a Canon 5D and you will get exactly the same effect you are accustomed to in a 35 mm camera, since the sensor is the same size as 35 mm film!.

Here is an example with a point and shoot camera, although it does have the larger sensor (1/1!.8") that makes it easier to blur the background!. Even though this is macro mode and f/2!.8, where the background should blur the most, it's not terribly blurry because it's relatively close to the subject!.

http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/samfeinstei!.!.!.

Here is an example with a point and shoot camera, so it CAN be done!. The background is much farther away, though, and this is the larger sensor size!.

http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/samfeinstei!.!.!.

Compare that to this image, though, which has a similar subject-to-background distance!. The SLR has the obvious advantage!.

http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/samfeinstei!.!.!.

Wikipedia does pretty well on the subject of depth of field!. See: http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Depth_of_fi!.!.!.

See also: http://www!.photo!.net/learn/optics/dofdig!.!.!.

See also: http://www!.flickr!.com/groups/dof/

MY DEMO ON FLICKR
===================================
Go to this link and click on the first image, called "Fake Flowers 1!." Then you can just click on each successive image in the set!. You can read the comments to see what is going on and then you can just page through the demo left-to-right (1 to 5) and back again to compare the effects of the larger sensor or better lens!.

http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/samfeinstei!.!.!.

35 mm f/2!.0
http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/samfeinstei!.!.!.

ANTONI'S DEMO
http://www!.flickr!.com/photos/samfeinstei!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

You need to be able to set the aperture to a wide setting (small number)!. I don't think your camera has a manual or aperture priority setting, but it may have something in the program settings that will work!. Try using all the different modes on the same subject and see how the images come out!. Portrait or maybe aquarium mode might work!.

Read the manual and check what the different settings do, or just experiment a lot!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

It is called Bokeh and really requires the camera to enable the photographer to use selective focus !.!.!. most P&S cameras cannot do this!.

http://www!.kenrockwell!.com/tech/bokeh!.ht!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com