G9: Portrait Distance

.
It seems to me that actual height for a tightly composed head shot is about two feet. How far away from the subject should the camera be to capture this two foot high subject? I suppose the distance can be calculated but frankly it is just easier to tape a yardstick to the wall and take a few shots.

For my G9, these are the camera-to-subject distances for various focal lengths.





The focal lengths in the chart are the same as the focal lengths from the previous posting which gave the maximum aperture for various focal lengths.

The depth of field can be calculated from distance, focal length and aperture. Taking some liberties in rounding off, depth of field for a portrait setting with the G9 is about one foot – give or take a few inches.

This little experiment would seem to indicate that a blurred background would be easily obtained with the Canon G9; however, the opposite is true. In fact, blurred backgrounds are difficult to obtain and extreme blur for portraits and larger scenes is nearly impossible to achieve with the G9. The apparent discrepancy is because the depth of field calculation is intended to predict the onset of blur and not the extreme.

Next: an example of typical G9 background blur for portrait setting
.