Making a point - from the roof of a Mill in Oldham

Hmmm that heading makes me realise I have been on the roof of a couple of mills in Oldham .. maybe not that remarkable in and of itself .. but surprising given I don't really have a head for heights.

Anyway that that was a digression back to matters at hand. You may wonder about the title of this post .. well let me explain. I was perusing the interweb one evening and saw a post on a site somewhere in response to a question someone had asked about blurring backgrounds when shooting with a compact camera.

The reply came back from someone , with great confidence and authority, that it was not possible to blur backgrounds with a compact camera because of the small sensor size everything is sharp from front right to the rear of the scene.  Hmmmm really ?, I thought.

Well kind readers please see the image below - taken with my Canon G10 COMPACT camera - and judge for yourselves whether the background is sharp or is it maybe just a little bit blurred ?

Now I am getting on a little in years and my eyesight isn't what it once was  ... but I'd say that background is ever so slightly blurred - what do you think ?

So there you go dear readers I made a point from the roof of a Mill in Oldham ... I don't mean I sat there outraged and instantly got in my car, drove to a mill, climbed the rusty stairs (muttering under my breath)  and then took this shot and came right home again, no , no it wasn't quite such. However I had decided I would at some point take a photo that showed that this persons statement was incorrect and was indeed going to post it on said site, ultimately I could not sign up to the site and so could not do this but the lesson remains - just because someone on the interweb speaks with great confidence and authority , doesn't necessarily mean they know what they are talking about - I could easily talk with great authority about something to do with brain surgery - doesn't mean it'd be a good idea to let me loose on your grandma with a scalpel.

By the way the image wasn't taken solely for that purpose - I thought it made an interesting photo and liked the optical illusion, if you like, of the small weed looking bigger than a large mill - the camera can and does lie.  It also goes to show it is worth learning about the practicalities and the "nitty gritty" of photography - it does give you more control, more creativity to know what things affect an image, how to get certain results.

Oh here is a shot of the rusty staircase I ascended to get to the roof of the mill: