11-16-2013, 07:22 PM
The UnDoug wrote:
So what I want.....as silly as it may be....is a camera which makes it easy to get that out of focus background with an in focus subject. Focal length, right?
No
The bigger your sensor, the easier this will be.
Focal length and distance to the subject really have nothing to do with depth of field.
What matters is the reproduction ratio, which is the size of your subject on your sensor with respect to how big your subject is in real life.
So, with a 35mm film camera or a full frame DSLR, you can have someone who is 6 feet tall in real life be one inch tall on your sensor. This is a 1:72 ratio.
On a 645 medium format film camera, you can make that 6 foot tall person two inches high on film for a 1:36 ratio.
So, F4 on a 645 camera has about the same depth of field as F2 on a 35mm camera.
The tiny sensor of a point and shoot digital camera makes it tough to have restricted depth of field since the reproduction ratio might be as high as 1:1000.