Click TRICKS

For The blurred effect
In technical terms, what you8217;re looking at is a limited depth of field. That8217;s a geek-shutterbug term meaning, 8220;which part of the scene, front-to-back, is in focus.8221; Subject yes; background, no.
That beautiful, professional effect is easy to get if you have an SLR; it practically happens automatically. Dial up a wide aperture8212;a low f-stop number8212;to accentuate the effect.

On a pocket cam, choose Portrait mode. Move your subjects away from the background8212;the farther, the better. Finally, use the back-up-and-zoom-in trick. That is, stand away from your subjects8212;the farther, the better8212;and then use the camera8217;s zoom to 8220;bring you8221; back up close. Thanks to a quirk of optics, zooming in helps create a shallow depth of field.
You may look like a weirdo, backing way up like that. But it really works.

USE FLASH OUTDOORS
It might not occur to you to use the flash when you8217;re taking pictures of people on a bright, sunny day. It certainly wouldn8217;t occur to the camera.
Problem is, the camera 8220;reads8221; the scene and concludes that there8217;s tons of sunlight. But it8217;s not smart enough to recognise that the face you8217;re photographing is in shadow. You wind up with a dark, silhouetted face.

The solution is to force the flash on8212;a very common photographer8217;s trick. The flash can provide just the right amount of fill light to brighten your subject8217;s face8212;without affecting the exposure of the background.
It eliminates the silhouette effect. Better yet, it provides very flattering front light. It softens smile lines and wrinkles, and it puts a nice twinkle in the subject8217;s eyes. It also means that you can ignore the old 8220;rule8221; about taking photos on a sunny day8212;the one that tells the photographer to 8220;Stand with the sun behind you8221;.

EXPLOIT THE MAGIC HOUR
Hate to break it to you, but serious photographers don8217;t get a lot of sleep. Show me an award-winning, breathtaking landscape8212;a pond shimmering in the woods, golden clouds surrounding a mountain peak8212;and I8217;ll show you someone who got up at 4:40 am to be ready with a tripod as the sun rose.
That hour after sunrise, and the hour before sunset, is known as the magic hour. The lower angle of the sun and the slightly denser atmosphere create rich, saturated tones, plus what photographers call sweet light. It8217;s an amazing, golden glow that makes everybody look beautiful, every building look enchanted, and every landscape look breathtaking.

It8217;s a far cry from the midday sun, which creates much harsher shadows and much more severe highlights. Landscape shooting is more difficult when the sun is high overhead on a bright, cloudless day.

LAMPSHADE SOCKET AS TRIPOD
Another chronic problem with pocket cams is getting blur when you don8217;t want it8212;which is just about any time you8217;re indoors without the flash. Yeah, yeah, we know: 8220;Use a tripod.8221; But come on: for the average person on vacation or at school events, buying, hauling around, and setting up a tripod is a preposterous burden.

Often, there8217;s a wall, parked car, bureau, tree, pillar, door frame, or some other big, stationary object you can use instead, to prop up either the camera or your arms.
But here8217;s my favourite trick: It turns out that the threads at the top of just about any lamp8212;the place where the lampshade screws on8212;are precisely the same diameter as a tripod mount! In a pinch, you can whip off the lampshade, screw on the camera, and presto: You8217;ve got a rock-steady indoor tripod.

People might think you8217;re a genius, a nutcase, or a genius nutcase, but never mind. It works.
There you have it, folks: five tips that can save you from throwing your pocket cam out the window. Happy shooting.
8212;NYT