Advice on digital camera for mom and photographer wanna be!

hi i reallly want a digital camera with a fast shutter speed, slow lag so i can continously take photos of my kiddos and outdoors, also i would love to have an automatic defocus background ability.... i really dont need the ability to change lenses becuase i highly doubt i would do that... i really dont wanna spend an enourmous amont of money, do i need a dslr or can i get away with a point and shoot?

 

The higher-end Sony point and shoot cameras have the background defocus feature and are quick. Look at the WX series (WX50, WX150), HX series (HX20, HX30 and HX200) and TX series (TX20, TX66 and TX200). Unless you're extremely picky with regard to image quality, any one of those cameras should do fine for you.

 

The Olympus XZ-1 (now being replaced by the XZ-2) can throw the background out of focus by virtue of a very fast lens.

Olympus XZ-1 Review

It is something of a different breed from the Sonys, as the price is higher, takes a little more skill, and has less zoom. But the colors and "styling" features are quite nice if you have an artistic bent.

Kelly Cook

 

Even the XZ-1 can't throw your regular-range backgrounds out of focus - e.g. your kid a few meters in front of you playing in front of a fence a few more meters away - because there's a limit what the sensor can do. And many other cameras with similar sized sensors and below which offers background defocusing do so via an effect - not just via exposure or optically - and therefore usually badly (e.g. Fuji's implementation is, I found, spectacularly cruddy. Can't speak for the Sony's).

If you want the 'pro look' defocusing at regular non-telephoto portraiture distances and generally speaking, a photographer's standard control of how you frame things, what you need is a large sensor and a bright lens. And that means a DSLR or a ILC like Sony's compact NEX range.

The Sony RX100 - which is a lot of money for a compact camera - is really the only compact camera which can convincingly behave like a DSLR at low zoom (things start working in favour of the Olympus's mentioned by KCook at higher zoom).