What Settings do I use to make the Depth of Field Effect?

I just recently bought a Fujifilm S1000FD. For quite awhile now, I've been trying to achieve the "DOF" Effect with my Camera. So far, I haven't been able to accomplish. What settings do I use for it to give it the best DOF?

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Fu... heres the link for the camera I own.

Photoshop is cheating...Yet its Clever...Bt I dont cheat..

Shallow DOF is hard to achieve on a camera like the S1000FD because the sensor is so much smaller than on a dSLR camera (size matters). For portraits with a blurry background however, set the mode dial to A(perture priority), and select the largest aperture available.
When you're at the wide-angle end of the zoom, the F1000FD can achieve a maximum aperture of f/2.8. This slowly changes to f/5 as you go all the way to the tele-photo end of the zoom. For the best result, always select the largest aperture, i.e. the smallest number available.
It also helps when you're pretty close to your subject, and your subject isn't standing directly in front of anything else. Extra distance between the subject and the background works to your advantage.

What you're describing is called "selective focus." This is where subjects in the foreground are sharp, but the background is softened and blurred out. Is this the effect you were looking for? They use this technique in magazines and movies a lot, to draw attention to something immediately in front of the camera, and to have less distraction from the background.

You need a camera that lets you set the aperture manually. The wider the aperture, the more shallow the depth of field is. You would have to open it to at least about f5.6 to get this effect. I've done it with manual 35mm film cameras before, but not with digital. I have a digital camera, but it's just point and shoot (which is why I use film when I want to try things like this). I don't know if your camera will let you change the aperture. You also need a camera that has a TRUE diaphram with real f-stops, not one where it just changes the sensor's sensitivity. Because selective focus is an optical effect.

Remember too, that if you use a larger aperture, you have to use a faster shutter speed to get the right exposure.

Here are a couple of pictures I took with a 35mm manual film camera, showing selective focus:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/ga...

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/ga...

I took these in October. This is with Kodak Ultra Color 100 film. Aperture was f5.6, and the shutter speed was 1/200.

If you wanted to use digital, you would need a camera that let you change the aperture manually.

And by the way, I've never seen a picture edited with Photoshop (or any other image editing program) able to get the same effect accurately. Whether you use film or digital, the effect looks much better if you just take it with the camera.

Not sure what you mean by "DOF Effect" but to illustrate DOF try this.

Set your camera to an aperture of f/2.8
go out into your backyard
get close, focus on a flower or a blade of grass or a leaf - try to pick one that's by itself and not crowded by others
take the picture

you'll see that the leaf / flower is in focus, but everything behind it is blurry - that's because at f/2.8 you have a shallow DOF.

Sadly you camera does not allow manual control of the lens aperture so you have no control over the DOF and zones of focus.

About the only thing you can do is be very careful about where you choose to place the focusing location on an object to use the existing limitations of the camera to best advantage.

I hope this is useful. You already have answers elsewhere.

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

Sample:

Left at f 1.8 right at f 5.6

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

More samples:

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

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

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

(Canon 100 mm 2.8 Macro at f 2.8)

agree with prev answer in regards to f stop and largest opening, as your priority. If the camera is not capable, why not use a variation of this by trying to blur in photoshop and control the point of focus.

DOF is a general term for areas of the photograph both in front and behind the main focus point which remain "sharp" (in focus).

What do you want to accomplish?