The Canon Powershot A590IS marketing materials indicate that the camera gives the user complete control over the photography settings. So why is it so hard to take a photo with the subject focused and the background blurred? A quick scan of the internet reveals that many other people are also experiencing difficulty gaining this effect.

Here is how I managed to achieve it on my Canon Powershot A590IS:

• set AF Frame to centre (in Menu)
• set on Av – aperture priority (dial on top of camera)
• zoom in to 4.0x (zoom trigger on top of camera)
• set aperture to F5.5 (left button on four-way toggle)
• stand close to the subject (about 80 cm should do it)
• focus on the subject (press shutter halfway)
• take photo (press shutter fully).

The photo below was taken with my camera using the above settings.

When starting out, you may find it easier to reduce the quality of the image to M2 (bottom of function settings) so that you can zoom in further to 6.4x.

Incidentally, if you set the Canon Powershot A590IS to portrait mode (dial on top of camera), you can generate a similar result. The trick is to zoom in and stand close to the subject. Only trouble is, zooming in and standing that close to a subject does not make for an ideal portrait … who has a head that small???

The next logical step was to see if my fully automated Canon IXUS 90IS could perform the same trick using portrait mode. And it does!

The following photo of one of my dogs was taken with the Canon IXUS 90IS using centre AF Frame, Portrait mode and zoomed in to 3x.

The following photo was also taken using my Canon A590IS on aperature priority set to 4.5 and macro focus on.