I having been shooting with a Canon Powershot G10, which is a nice point and shoot camera with both automatic and manual modes. I am noticed that even in the manual modes, even with manual focus, I am not achieving very much depth of field. Objects in the background are only slightly out of focus. In the macro mode, the camera seems to be able to do better at this, but even then it is sometimes confused and unable to focus at all. Prior to his camera, I used a film SLR (a Canon) . I don't remember having difficulty with depth of field.
I am wondering if film cameras are better at depth of field, or if there are digital SLRs that are just as good or better. Anyway, I am quite happy with my little camera in every other respect and am not looking to buy a new one just yet, but I am curious.
Depth of field, isn't so much about how you focus, but if you can change the aperture, the distance you are from the subject and the focal length. Unsure if your P&S can change those settings, but if you can, give it a try and see what you get. :)
Thanks Kyla. I don't think I was very clear in my question though. What I'm saying is that my camera is very good at getting everything in focus, regardless of how I control the aperture. Even when my camera is in AV mode or M mode (completely manual) in which I have lowered the aperture as much as possible so as to isolate my subject, the camera will create an image that is almost entirely in focus. If my goal was to have a clear flower and a blurry background, the background will not be very blurry at all. There is something of a difference, but not much. This seems to be the case whether I'm standing right in front of the flower or a few feet away and zooming in. I'll keep experimenting and reading and see what happens...
How low does the aperture step down to? Try it wide open...then zoom in on the subject just a little, and see if it gives the background a bit more depth.
The smaller your sensor, the greater your inherent DOF (as in, the more will be in focus). It isn't actually about the sensor, but about the field of view of the lens. As a sensor gets smaller, the corresponding lens to achieve the same field of view gets wider, and wide angle lenses have, naturally, greater depth of field - the reason why you can take a landscape at f/5.6 with a fisheye and have it fairly sharp through the entire range, but a 400mm at f/5.6 will render everything out of focus except your subject.
Essentially, with a PAS camera, you are naturally going to get greater DOF and you'll be working really hard to get nice shallow DOF and bokeh. Macro, of course, has very shallow DOF so you will get nice effects even stopped down to a small aperture and in fact it can be difficult to get enough DOF to make an entire subject sharp.
With a PAS camera, you can try using "sport" mode (faster shutter speed and larger aperture) to get shallower DOF, and also zoom (optical zoom only) as far as possible to accentuate it further. You won't be able to replicate your old SLR though.
it's nothing to do with whether it's a film or a digital camera. As Jinx suggests, it's the lens. I believe the Canon G10 has a max aperture of f/2.8, which is reasonable but will not get great background blur (which is what I assume you're trying to get). The Canon S90, for example, has a max aperture of f/2 and can achieve reasonably good and shallow DoF. In other words, you'll either need to shoot subjects that are very close to you with a background that is a great distance away, or you'll need a new camera that either has a larger max aperture (like the S90 or the new S95) or a DSLR with a prime lens.
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Depth of field, isn't so much about how you focus, but if you can change the aperture, the distance you are from the subject and the focal length. Unsure if your P&S can change those settings, but if you can, give it a try and see what you get. :)
Essentially, with a PAS camera, you are naturally going to get greater DOF and you'll be working really hard to get nice shallow DOF and bokeh. Macro, of course, has very shallow DOF so you will get nice effects even stopped down to a small aperture and in fact it can be difficult to get enough DOF to make an entire subject sharp.
With a PAS camera, you can try using "sport" mode (faster shutter speed and larger aperture) to get shallower DOF, and also zoom (optical zoom only) as far as possible to accentuate it further. You won't be able to replicate your old SLR though.