Thanks Redpenguin, nice.
Looking at these, it occurs to me that management of background blur
(bokeh) is very important in this kind of photography with a clearly defined subject.
If you do some basic math with the lens formula you'll discover that the circle of confusion is a function of aperture (Av), focal length (f) and magnification. The modern small cameras have very small sensors (hence small agnification) and small focal lengths, so they won't excel in blurring the background. Then you're better off with DSLR's. Let me demonstrate:
The subject is a little tree with a disorderly piece of garden in the back. All pix are reduced in size the crops in lower right corner are on 100% showing background just to the left of its trunk.
Camera: good old Panasonic FZ18, small sensor (crop factor 0.17 compared to original SLR size) of and at minimum focus (4.6 mm wideangle) and max aperture (f 2.8). No blur:
If we move backwards and zoom in a bit (4x), it only helps a little bit, also because the maximum aperture reduces with this type of zoomlens (f 3.6), countering the blurring.
So if we take the DSLR with a larger sensor (crop factor 62.5% compared to the original SLR size) with a 100mm telelens at full aperture (f 2.8), we get this:
Note I was using small size pictures (2592 x 1728 pixel) for experimenting. On large size the crop would be about twice as big).
So if you want a blurry background, move backwards, use the maximum tele position of the lens and, if you can control it, the widest possible aperture (lowest (Av -) number).
But then again if you want a real wide depth of field, then reverse all those numbers, like this: DSLR f: 12mm, Av 11
and partially visible on both images above (especially on the second one, as it is cropped to about 50%).
