Need advice on purchasing a digital camera

pmedia · Post by **pmedia** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:16 am

Need advice on purchasing a digital camera
I need a camera that can take a picture with the person or object in the foreground looking sharp and clear while objects such as trees etc. in the background looking really blurred. I hope you get the picture.

I need suggestions in the range of $300 to $500 USD.

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:55 pm

What you need to look for is a camera that has manual focus ability. Most of the name brand, Canon, Kodak, Nikon have models that may be in your price range.

I use a Kodak Easyshare P880, however it has been discontinued. It is a very versatile camera and was in that price range.

The blurring is the D.O.F. (Depth of Field), which not only is not blurring the background, but the reverse, focusing on the background and blurring something in the foreground.

You can achieve this DOF effect using most image editors like PI. Just select the blur tool and paint over the area (background) that you want blurred.

pmedia · Post by **pmedia** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:48 am

Thanks for the suggestion _ I did not remember I could use Photo impact to achieve this

However, I think it would be more intersting to do it with a camera

Post by **VikingAnimations** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:30 am

In addition to manual focus, something with easily adjustable "f stops" is what you want. In the old days before digital cameras, that was easy to do. f2 meant only what you were focused on was crisp, and pretty much anything else was fuzzy. With f22, everything is in focus.

As for what is available that does that, I've no suggestions. I've not been shopping for one of those yet - out of my price range at the moment. But I'd sure like one! I really don't like "auto everything" cameras... I wish my old Pentax K1000 took digital photos!

Xyzzy2 · Post by **Xyzzy2** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:09 am

[quote="vidoman"]What you need to look for is a camera that has manual focus ability. Most of the name brand, Canon, Kodak, Nikon have models that may be in your price range. [quote]

No, he needs a camera with as large sensor as possible (DSLR?- they have much nicer bokeh too) and as fast lens as possible; long focal length also helps. Nothing to do with focus, you can use spot focus (or equivalent function) on 95% of digital cameras out there.

Details here:
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html