In photography, blurring the background helps draw attention to the subject of the photo. It’s not hard to do with a digital SLR camera because of the digital sensor’s or film frame’s size (also called the format), but what if all you have is the small-format digital camera in your pocket? You can blur the background with almost any camera if you can control the factors that affect what’s in focus. And when you shop for a compact digital camera, you can look for certain features that make it easier to blur backgrounds.

In some photos almost everything appears to be in reasonably sharp focus, from nearby objects to distant objects. In other photos only a thin slice of the total depth of the scene (at the actual focus distance) appears sharp, and the rest is visibly blurred out of focus. The range of the distance that’s in focus is called the depth of field. It starts from the focus point (the distance of your subject), with the range of acceptable focus extending in front of and behind your subject. The photographic techniques for using depth of field to blur the background are the same no matter what kind of camera you have, but the limitations of small-format compact cameras make you work harder than you would with a camera with a larger frame format.

via How to Blur Backgrounds with a Compact Camera | CreativePro.com.