Playing with AV Mode

Today I'm allowing myself to stay home and recover from a little cough. (I LOVE my grandkids!:) It seemed like a good time to study a little more about aperture with my camera, so I turned off "auto" and turned on "AV mode" on my Canon G11 to see if I could come up with some nice blurry backgrounds. The quality of the blur is called bokeh, but I don't know how to pronounce it. Any photographers out there want to fill me in? I read on one website that it sounds like "bouquet"...is that right?

I attended some "classes" online and learned about aperture settings, focal length, and distance from subject, then went outside to experiment. Since my camera is not a DSLR, getting good bokeh is more of a challenge. It is also confusing because of what Becky mentioned: "larger aperture (smaller number) creates a shallower depth of field. Smaller aperture (larger number) gives you a deeper field of focus." Gah! It is easier for me to think: "Smaller number means less area of focus...larger number means larger area in focus."

By the way, Becky, I didn't explain myself too well in my last post. My camera was not zooming because I changed the aperture...it was zooming because I turned the zoom knob myself. :)

So here's a selection of today's trials. I have discovered that using a zoom helps to blur the background in AV mode, and so does getting very close to the subject.

f/4.5 30 mm

f/4.5 25mm

f/4.5 30mm

f/2.8 6mm

f/4.5 30mm

That's all well and good with subjects that are somewhat still. What do I do about subjects such as this:


Is it even possible to get a nice blurry background, plus sharp focus on a constantly moving child? (Elsie, two weeks ago)