My limited experience of compacts is that hoping for decent control over depth of field is a bit of a pipe-dream. The aperture range will probably only be from wide open to F8 or so and, given the small sensor size, you'll have problems throwing any background out of focus. I'm sure others will disagree, but my feeling is that aperture control is useless. Shutter priority is limited given the small aperture range available. On top of this, you really want to use the lowest possible ISO setting, so what are you left with? Just point and shoot I reckon.