How to achieve a shallow depth of field with a point and shoot?

[Doc Stampede]

Hiya!

Its definitely possible to use the Canon point and shoots for DOF, but it does take a little bit of trickery. Everything people have said is valid. I carry a Canon G9 as my travel camera, and have managed to get a few nice shallow DOF shots.

I like to switch to Manual mode, turn on Macro, and either zoom in and step back if there's something I can isolate or get as close as possible to what I'm focusing on..

A few pictures just for fun.

[ncbcymtechie]

Originally Posted by Iguanasan

I have a Canon PowerShot SX110 IS and have played with it enough to discover the same capabilities. The limitation, however, comes in when you want a shallow depth of field on an object that is far away.

I tried to take a shot of a sailboat and put it in focus and everything behind it out of focus but it will not work unless you are practically on top of the boat. So, for portraits or macros it works great but trying to achieve DOF in landscapes is near to impossible with a P&S.

Regards, Iguanasan

Speaking of point-and-shoots... all the folks here who have ultrazooms like the SX series and the prosumer cameras like the G9 have manual controls, I believe. My SD850 IS (the only digital camera I own, in fact) trumps all in terms of lack of control. However, I was still able to get shallow depth of field pictures like the following:



This was taken with the macro setting, which seems to work pretty well. (You can check out more flowers in macro in my Flickr photostream—click on the picture.) With manual controls you could just use larger apertures (smaller f-stop numbers).

But back to Iguanasan—he's right. Portrait mode will only get you a shallow depth of field at maybe 5-10 feet (I haven't tried it yet). For a ship in the distance, a point-and-shoot just isn't going to cut it.

I haven't really brought anything new to the conversation, just verified what everybody else has already said.

[fletch]

Originally Posted by ncbcymtechie

For a ship in the distance, a point-and-shoot just isn't going to cut it.

Even a full frame DSLR won't be able to get a blury background on some subjects such as a ship in the distance

According to DoFMaster a full frame Nikon D3 with a 50mm at f/1.4 if you focus to 193ft everything behind the point of focus will be sharp. The difference between that and a P&S is the distance in front of the subject that will be in focus. For the same field of view the P&S (with a crop factor of 6) will be in focus from 27ft to ∞ the D3 96ft to ∞.

The differnce between the cameras comes in the mid ranges such as those used for portaits where the background is close to the subject. A 100mm f/2.8 lens on the D3 with a subject 15ft away will only have a DoF of 1.14ft (and a nice blury background) but the P&S will have a DoF of 7.2ft meaning that in a standard indoor setting the background will still be in focus.

[Claggy]

Keep in mind that while using a low fstop number (ex. f/2.8) you won't always have a shallow depth of field with your camera. While it will surely make it more shallow than lets say, f/8, you also have to keep in mind that the distance between the focal point and the background (and or everything around it) will also effect the depth of field. If the object you are shooting is very close to it's background, you'll have a hard time getting a shallow depth of field, whereas having your subject further away from the background will create a much more shallow depth of field. Hope that made sense.. haha.

[jim.neff]

I took this with my Polaroid PDC-640 (can't get too much more Point & Shoot than that). It only has 3 settings, macro, portrait and infinity for focus. I set this on macro. But there are no other settings on the camera (other then turning off the flash). The camera was very close to the flowers which is probably why the DoF worked here.



This one was with my Canon Powershot A510



f/5.5
23.2 mm
1/1250

Again, using the camera's auto macro mode. I could never seem to get it to do proper DoF in manual mode. Even when I had aperture set to lowest F the background always seemed to be in focus. I gave that camera to my brother in-law when I got my D-40 and haven't had a chance to play with DoF with it yet. Will try to tonight for my project365 entry.

[fletch]

Originally Posted by jim.neff

I took this with my Polaroid PDC-640 (can't get too much more Point & Shoot than that).

Wow - DoF with a polaroid. Now that is impresive. My polaroid can't even focus and just relies on the hyperfocal distance of the lens. No nice blury backgrounds for me!