How do I take those professional-looking pics with a person in the forefront and a blurry background?

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What you're looking for is a shallow depth of field, and honestly, you really do need an SLR to get the very blurred backgrounds (known as "bokeh") without editing in a program afterwards. Typically, I don't recommend compensating skill with technology, but this is a severe limitation of virtually every compact digital camera. The sensor of a compact digital camera is miniscule, much much smaller than a piece of 35mm film or a DSLR sensor. One factor in determining depth of field is the size of the recording medium -- the smaller the sensor, the deeper the depth of field. Another factor is the size of the lens aperture -- the wider the aperture (wide aperture means low f/#), the shallower the depth of field. Depth of field also varies by how close the subject is to the camera -- notice that the examples posted by other answerers show good bokeh macro subjects that are extremely close to the lens. At portraiture distance, the subject will be generally too far away to give a shallow depth of field that you'd want. The sensor is so small in a digital point and shoot that even at the lowest aperture that the camera lens allows, the depth of field is still so deep that you can't get the silky smooth bokeh that you see in portraiture. There exists no in-camera workaround for this issue, it's a limitation of hardware and physics that cannot be fixed by any point and shoot digital camera without a sensor much much larger than is currently offered by all but the most exotic point and shoot cameras (ie, Sigma DP1).

Now, if you're shooting film, you're in luck. The size of the recording medium never changes between SLR and point and shoot film cameras, so the limiting factor is taken away by using film....Show more

It's easier with an SLR, but digital set to portrait should do ot.
You want a short field of focus, or a wide open apeture.

That way the camera can only focus in a narrow range.
Most point and shoots have a high depth of field (tiny hole to take the photo through) so that just about everything is in focus (but they need more light to do this).

Cool stuff though
Have fun
Mal.

(I love Tiffany's answer!)...Show more

You don't need a complicating digital SLR camera to do this for you. If you have an advanced point and shoot camera, such as the Canon powershot S3IS which is a 300$ camera, you can get nice photographs like this:

http://flickr.com/photos/sugarbearsteve/346545197/

It's a really nice camera. It's just a little slow at focusing. Since i've gotten my digital SLR i don't use this camera that much anymore. It was a good camera though, you can see the results on the last few pages of my photostream:

http://flickr.com/photos/27145979@N02/

But to answer your question, no, not only SLR cameras can Isolate their subjects, and get that trademark out of focus areas.



...Show more

SLR will be a lot easier- with the right lenses and all...

However, here is my cheap method for a point and shoot camera. Put your camera on micro (super close up). You'll have to get super close to your subject to get the person/object in focus, and background blurred.

Press your button half way to focus, and the background should become blurry.

There's probably a more technically way, but hey, it works for me!...Show more

Any camera that allows you to control the aperture will do. It doesn't have to be an SLR, advanced point and shoots can do this as well.

You'll want to use a wide aperture (F4 or below will work best)....Show more