Background Blur with Nikon Coolpix 4500 possible?

Hi all,

I am new and found this site very helpful. I have to say you are all fantastic!

I have a Nikon Coolpix 4500 and want to tack background blur shots for my car and my girlfriend.

It's not hard for me to do this with a 35mm SLR. I simply use a large aperture like 3.8 and adjust the

focus. Click and I am done. The subject is clear and the background is blurry.

 

However, I find this very difficult with my Nikon digital coolpix 4500. I chose aperture-priority mode

and use 3.8 (could've been 3.5) as my aperture. I take the shot and everything (subject and

background) came out Very Clear! How could this be? Could it be because I use auto-focus? I chose

manual focus and find it very hard to keep the subject itself focus. So my question is:

 

1) What am I missing taking the background blur shots with my coolpix 4500? What's the right

procedure of doing this?

 

2) Does anyone have tips on how to make my manual focus work right? I can't get anything in focus

when I press down 'MF' button and turn that silver dial. Please help! Thank you.

Without being technical, DOF is a function of the lens length. When you take a pic, what is the camera's focal length set at (and the 35mm equivalent)? Most likely it's set too wide. You can try zooming in the lens and then moving back, but the distance to subject is also a function of DOF. The farther away, the larger the DOF. You may be stuck unless you have access to a camera that meets these requirements.

You're not doing anything wrong. That's the way today's digital cameras are. The image size (ie the physical size of the CCD) on the Coolpix is very small compared to a 35mm film. As a result, the focal length of the lens is very short. This combination gives you more depth of field. The "problem" (if you want to call it that) is somewhat alleviated with a "professional" digicam like the D100, but only goes away with the new "full frame" cameras that are beginning to become available.

I have the same problem with my 990 coolpix. Of course the problem is caused by the small sensor, which gives great depth of field because of the relatively short focal lengths. The effective zoom equals 38-125mm (or thereabouts) in the 35mm world. But in reality it is 8-24mm.

 

The only control you have is as you have already tried: aperture priority at the longest zoom and manual focus (which barely works with these coolpix cameras). You could add a ND filter to help attain the largest possible aperture, and perhaps try focusing in front of the subject. Then try blurring the background in photoshop. However I reach for the film camera and a 105 or 180 when I want to truly blur the background!

Do you notice a lot or any background blurr with your eyes? The short focus small CRT point and shoot digitals seem to give much more natural pictures than the SLRs. Right?

John I understand perfectly your frustration. I tried with my Coolpix 885 and no results although I respected every word of a pro photography book. I just gave up and now save money for the D 100.

Thank you all for helping. I appreciate your responses.

you can do it obviously in a photoediting package on the pc using a brush size either large or small using blur function. I used Photoshop Elements (cheaper version of the big guy Photoshop)

 

see this image

 

http://www.bluetyger.ca/issue18/sfbw/pages/redgreentruckds.htm