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Photography question

I have a Panasonic LUMIX DMC-ZS25. I've never taken anything but auto focus pics with it. How do I take a pic with subject in focus and background out of focus? Or am I better off using an App to manipulate the pic afterward? If so, which App? Thanks!

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John, you will need to put your camera in either manual or AV mode. If it is low light, set your ISO higher somewhere between 800 - 3200. If in AV mode set your aperture or f-stop to 4 or less, will depend on your lens. A telephoto lens works best zoomed in. Your camera will set your shutter speed. Manual will be about the same except you will have to determine what shutter speed to use.

Don't worry about your camera setting. DOF is what its all about. To get creamery smooth bokeh you need a fast lens, the faster the better. 1.2 ...2....even a 2.8 will get you some nice bokeh. Something else to consider. A long lens in a 70-200/2.8 class gives nice bokeh when you zoom in on a close subject. The background just goes to butter. BTW..keep your ISO as low as you can. This will take the grain out of the picture if you are looking for pure clarity. Most lenses except the really fast ones will not allow you to shoot in 50-100 ISO range. A higher ISO will get you faster but much more grain if you are that critical.

The Rock

Shoot in aperture priority mode and see what the camera advises. Then go to Manual mode and put in your own settings using the aperature mode only as a guide that you were given and start from there.

Getting bokeh is really simple if you have the right lens.

The Lumix is a point and shoot but does have Aperture Priority Mode. Only use optical zoom (never digital zoom). There is only so much you can do with it but if you keep a low aperture number (large iris opening) you can get that effect in some situations.

Or....you can step back a little ways and zoom in on your subject....that also gives you depth of field

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