hi guys!!! Well, at long last, my new cam has arrived (Sony DSC F-828). Whooo-hooo! Now I know why i had no clue about appeture/f-stop. My old cam, as far as i know, didn't have way to manually set f-stop. As soon as i looked at this cam, i see that this one does...as well as manual zoom. sooooo, i'll be able to learn about this more now and hopefully start nailing DOF!!!! thanks guys for all your help on this subject!!!!