How do I shoot a portrait with a blurry / fuzzy background with my Sony DSC H7 (outdoors) ?

Is it possible to create the blurry background effect when shooting people at, say, 15 feet away? Using my DSC H7? What kind of lens would I need to add?

I know they have the Sony telephoto lens in their store, but will that do the trick? I got the impression from various forums that you *must* use telephoto lens at the camera's maximum zoom. But that's way too zoomed-in for regular portrait shots. I also read somewhere that telephoto is useless if you're not going to use the extra zoom...

The other reason I like telephoto is because it reduces wide angle distortion, but you have to stand farther away (which I'm willing to do, to some extent).

So...anyone know anything about background blur using add-on lens? Increasing aperture only helps create a blur when shooting very close objects (i.e. macro mode).

by the way, i'm willing to buy an adapter if I need to attach a different size lens; for example, one that was designed for the H1 / H3 / H5. But the mm numbers just confuse me.

keywords: digital camera, photography, SLR, DSLR

Max zoom on your camera is indeed too much for standard portraiture. Focal lengths between 80mm and 105mm are the most common for portraits. If mm numbers just confuse you, take some time to learn what they mean so they don't confuse you. It's pretty important to understand it. (Your lens is a 31-465mm)

There is nothing you can buy to create the blurry background. It's all in the technique.
1) First set the zoom on your camera a little less than half of max zoom. This should be somewhere close to the ideal portrait range
2) Set your camera to aperture priority mode and set the f-stop to the lowest number it will go to at the focal length it is set to. This gives you the largest aperture possible.
3) Position your subject so that the background is far away from the subject. Always pay attention to your background.
4) Position yourself from the subject so that you have the most pleasing background and they are framed for a portrait.
5) Lock the focus on the eyes and recompose to finish taking your photo.