How do you take a picture, where the main person is in focus, but the backround is faded/blurry?

I have a Sony, Cyber shot DSC-W55. I'm not sure if it's possible with my camera, or if it's a special lens and/or a better camera. Here's a example.
http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m22/t...

Here is a link to all you need to know.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/bokeh.ht...

By design getting good Bokeh is more difficult using a P&S camera ... first the small sensor makes even poor lenses look pretty good. The sensor is at least 15 times smaller than a DSLR's sensor. There is an other problem ... most P&S cameras do not have aperture priority mode you will need to keep the aperture wide open all the time you are trying to use Bokeh.

What you're describing is called "selective focus." This is done by using a shallow depth-of-field. The depth of field means the distance in front of and behind a subject that will be in focus. A long depth of field will produce a sharp background, while a shallow depth of field will cause the background to be soften and blurred out. Sometimes, you want a sharp background, like with a landscape photo. But other times, you want to blur out the background to draw more attention to something immediately in the foreground.

The way to change the depth of field is with the aperture setting. The aperture is the opening on the lens that exposes the film (or sensor in a digital camera). A wider opening allows more light to enter the camera, and a more narrow opening passes less light. It also effects the depth of field. A more narrow opening will form a sharper image with a long depth of field, and a wider opening will have a more shallow depth of field and will soften the background.

The aperture has what are called "f-stops." It's a little confusing, but a small f-stop number actually means a bigger aperture, and a smaller f-stop number means a smaller aperture. So f-5.6 is actually a bigger opening than f-16. To get a shallow depth of field and get the selective focus effect you want, you need to use a wider aperture setting, like f-5.6

The trick is that since a wider aperture setting will allow more light in, in order to get the same exposure, you have to compensate by using a faster shutter speed.

I don't know much about your particular camera, but you need to read the instructions and see if you can manually set the aperture and shutter speed. This is easy to do with a manual film camera, but not all digital cameras have manual controls. A point and shoot digital camera gives very little control.

If your camera has manual settings for the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, then here is what I would suggest:

(This is assuming you're taking the picture outside on a clear, sunny day).

Set the ISO to 100
Set the aperture to F-5.6
Set the shutter speed to 1/300

This should give you the right combination to get a proper exposure, while using a large aperture and getting a shallow depth of field.

Look on Google for "selective focus" and "depth of field" to get more information.

In essence, depth of field is created by three things

1. Focal length
2. Aperture
3. Distance to subject

on your camera its going to be hard, as they are designed to have everything in focus as the primary goal, not creative control

Turn it to manual mode, zoom in all the way, open the aperture to its lowest value, and get in close to your subject

Its possible

Sony, Cyber shot DSC-W55
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-h...
support manuals
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-d...
pdf manual DSCW55
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/DSCW55_...

there are some focus options for distance, macro and zoom, may be able to achieve basic blur around main focal point, but no feature for focus blur mentioned,
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after taken image could be edited in photoshop type program with selection, inverted, featheringedge , and blurred with motion/ radial filter,
..

I have a Kodak Easyshare.. nothing fancy.. but if I'm standing a good distance away on someone and zoom in, the background is blurry like that. (Just on automatic settings..) I also have a setting on mine called, " Flower" where it lets you really zoom in and it makes the background like that everytime. I use it to do that too... I'm not real good at taking pics and don't know the "technical" names of anything.. but if you're like me you just want to know an easy way! :)

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g108/j...

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g108/j...

On a point and shoot use the longest telephoto which has the minimum DOF (depth of field), you can make the camera select a wide aperture (the other requirement of shallow DOF) by using ND (Neutral Density) filters.

It's all so much easier with a DSLR and a fast lens.

Chris

You already have great answers--here are some samples..

Click on "all sizes" to see larger one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/little_pook...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/little_pook...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/little_pook...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/little_pook...

Automatic focus normally does it for you.

after I take pic & download - I edit