Depth of Field Question

[Marseeya]

I get the terminology mixed up... is a shallow depth of field when the subject is in focus and everything else is blurry?

Anyway, is it possible to do this with the Canon S2 IS? I haven't been able to get it to work. I'll set it to f2.8 and focus on my subject, but everything else seems to come in nice and clear.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

1. yes you are correct
2. f/2.8 on a tiny sensor camera will be different than f/2.8 on a 1.6x-crop dSLR (Rebel, 30D) and different than f/2.8 on a full-frame (35mm size) dSLR (5D, 1DsMKII). The smaller the sensor, the more difficult for you to achieve that.
3. Your distance to the subject and the subject's distance to the background also plays a major role. The closer you are to the subject AND the further away the subject is from the background, the easier and blurrier the background will become.

 

[Muushka]

Are you using aperature priority? Also, my camera has the option of focus to be on 'closest subject'. That makes a difference on my camera.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

If she sets it to f/2.8 then it must be in Aperture Priority.

 

[Muushka]

If she sets it to f/2.8 then it must be in Aperture Priority.

Right you are!

 

[Chickysmom]

Could someone explain the difference between the Av (Aperture Priority) setting and the A-Dep (Depth of Field Priority) settings.....sorry if this is a silly question but I'm just starting out and need help with the basics and these two settings seem and awful lot a like to me.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Av: you set the aperture setting.
A-Dep: the camera sets the best aperture setting in order everything within the focus points are in focus.

 

[manning]

depth of field

http://www.azuswebworks.com/photography/dof.html

For those interested a depth of field calculator

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