Bokeh for Point And Shoot ..

Before joining with flickr I have never heard the term "Bokeh", and was really not interested. In fact I know nothing about that "Bokeh". One day I have clicked the shot and uploaded it, then i got the comment ... "nice bokeh" .... I was surprised, as I am not a professional photographer and don't know the terms of photography, all I know is pick my camera and take a shot. So later on i went googling with the term BOKEH ... and actually found out that it is a cool effect in which the background of a photo is blurred to draw the viewer’s attention to a particular area. The term comes from the Japanese word boke.

The English spelling bokeh was popularized in 1997 in Photo Techniques magazine. Good bokeh is especially important for large-aperture lenses,macro lenses, and long telephoto lenses because they are typically used with a shallow depth of field. But for me its sometimes very hard to capture a bokeh shot beacuse I am a point shooter, I don't have DSLR camera and extra lenses with me.

But also I am never giving up to take a bokeh shot with my P & S camera. If I can, so can you (those who have P & S camera) .... Here are some tips. I have Sony Cyber - shot - DSC-H50 camera and previously Panasonic DMC-LS70

1. Set the camera to Portrait mode or I generally go with Auto Adjustment mode.
2. Keep the plenty of space in between your subject and the background.
3. If you really need a large amount of bokeh place a subject in front of tree having many leaves, I generally do that ;)
4. If you need a smooth bokeh then place your subject on any plane background.
5. Bokeh is all about creating the background out of focus, so keeping objects close to the subject will remain in focus and the objects at a distance will be out of focus.
6. Place the subject at the exact place and step back and take the longest zooooooom.
7. You can try if from different angles. And even replace other subject with same background.
8. Just focus on subject and take as many shots you can, as many I do.

Here are my fav bokehlious shot.
With Panasonic DMC-LS70, 7.2 Megapixels