How do you do bokeh and manual focus on a camera?

To have the best chance of getting an out-of-focus area from a basic camera you need to make sure that you're using the best settings to do so. Not having manual focus isn't always a problem. Your camera isn't ideal for this effect, but you can give it the best chance possible by doing the following:

- You need to zoom the camera as much as possible. The longer the focal length the shorter the depth of focus.

- Get as close as you can to the subject and make sure the background is a long way away.

I've had a look at the manual for your camera and I can't find any specific mode that's going to be best for the purpose. If the subject is really small you could try macro/flower mode (i.e. a daisy), but for a person you'll need auto.

You can try and fake bokeh with editing, but it isn't going to fool anyone that knows what they're looking for.

A lense can only be critically focussed at one setting. Between the near and far points of ACCEPTABLE sharpness is the zone referred to as "depth of field". This is the area where all points are as it says, acceptably sharp. This depth is related to to focal length of the lense and it's physical diameter at the iris - the F number. The smaller the iris the greater the depth of field. The shorter the focal length,the greater the depth of field. Behind and in front of this sharp zone is an unsharp zone. Lenses with good 'bokeh' pleasingly blur this unsharpness so it does not challenge the subject but isolates it, exaggerrating it's sharpness by comparison. Manual focus is best with a viewfinder - you see what the lense is focussed on and make adjustments but turning the lense's focussing ring - if there is one! This is where SLRs win hands down over compacts & point and shoots. With film cameras one also has the option of rangefinder focussing, not quite the same but very efficient on many circumstances. If you control the point of sharpest focus and the lense aperture then you also control the amount of unsharpness in the unfocussed areas.

Autofocus in an auto exposure camera might give some good bokeh if the subject is very close and the background quite distant. Focal lengths on small sensor digi's are so short that it is difficult to achieve. You really need a camera where you can control the focal length and focus by sight, concentrating on subjects 30 or 40 cm away at the most.

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The first answer is completely wrong. It also has nothing to do with manual focus. You need to be as close as possible to your subject. Have your subject as far as possible from the background. Zoom in as much as you can, and set your camera to the widest aperture possible.

Bokeh is done on photoshop on the computer. Manual focus should be moving 'that box in the middle' and you won't get the nice blurry backgrounds because as you said, it's just a crappy digital camera. You can blur the background on the computer, also, using photoshop. If you ever get a DSLR, it's a switch on the side of the side of the lens. (to switch to manual focus)