The problem you are having is a consequence of the type of camera that you have. Compact cameras like yours have tiny, tiny sensors and a very limited range of aperture. Because of this, you will not be able to get the shallow Depth of Field that dSLR’s get. Things behind your main subject will have to be much further away for you to start to see them blur.

You can do some experimenting. Go outside and find something like a street sign that has trees or other things close behind it. Open up your aperture (lowest f-stop number) and take a picture. Then find something that is standing out by itself with things behind it that are far away. Shoot from the same distance with the same aperture.

Also note that zoom can affect this too. At each of your experimental subjects, try standing further back and zooming in.

Quote:
“… The larger the “HOLE” or aperture (fstop), the more light will hit your sensor, the smaller the “HOLE” or aperture (fstop) the less light will hit your sensor…”

There’s no doubt you know what you’re talking about, and all I need is to make sure I haven’t misunderstood something, but here we go:

The larger the “HOLE” the more light will hit your sensor (obviously)
and
The smaller the “HOLE” the less light will hit your sensor (obviously)

that makes completely sense, but adding “aperture (fstop)” behind that doesn’t make sense to me, because:

The LARGER the aperture (fstop) the less light will hit your sensor, right?
The SMALLER the aperture (fstop) the more light will hit your sensor, right?

Example:

With F/5.6 more light will hit your sensor compared to f/16 – f/16 being a LARGER APERTURE but a SMALLER “HOLE” right? .. That would make more sense to me, but I just wanted to make it clear, so that I can continue on learning about exposure without being confused on exactly this subject.

Hope this makes sense!

Keep up the good work, I am so thankful for being able to get all this information from you and this website, to continue on learning about photography! Thank you!

- Andreas Nielsen