Focus & apeture question....

[~AJ~]

I hope this is in the right spot.....

I'm having real issues with my focus lately. If I'm getting just 1 subject & they're nice & close, generally fine. However if I'm shooting more than 1 subject, or the subject is a little further away I'm really struggling.

I usually shoot on f/3.5 (which is the widest my 18-55mm will go) when I'm nice & close to my subject, coz that's what I've been told to do for portraits. But what f/stop to I use if the subject is a little further away, or I'm shooting more than 1? I find if I've got more than 1 person & I focus & recompose on the middle person, or the person closest to me, the others are OOF...... I'm usually shooting toddlers, so need a fast shutter speed, which means I often have to have my apeture as wide as possible & bump my ISO up quite high too....

Oh & another question....... If I'm doing portraits of say, one of my kids painting or drawing & I focus on their eyes, their hands which are usually infront of them are OOF..... Again, I'm usually on f/3.5 with a shutter speed as fast as I can do in the light conditions I'm in at the time....

I hope my questions are clear enough - I'm so confused by everything at the moment & it's just when I thought I had it all worked out. I came so close to throwing the towel in on photography they other day, coz I'd just had enough of so many of my photos not working out!

[CheaperKings]

Simple; you need to close your apreture down to get more DOF. This is going to require you to need more light. I'd use an off-camera flash.

The lower the f/stop, the less DOF. The higher the f/stop, the more DOF.

Hope that helps...

[inkista]

Shooting wide open by default--not such a great idea. Use your maximum aperture because you choose to. Stuff can get sharper when you stop down, as well as getting more of it in focus with DoF. You can also "fix" vignetting and some CA that way, too. Try changing up your aperture a bit more. Don't fear the high ISO. Or turn the lights on, or shoot near a window. Or learn how to bounce flash from an external speedlight.

Secondly, make sure you've got control of your autofocus system. Increasing your DoF will make focusing less critical, but autofocus systems are not telepathic. They don't necessarily know what you want in focus, unless you tell the AF system explicitly. Learn to use single AF points, and specifically, how to use the center AF point, half-press, and recompose.

[private]

Also take a look here It will tell you how far AWAY from your subject you need to be. I suspect if you just step BACK a few inches, they would have been in focus.

And at 3.5 if you are not getting enough light, bump up that ISO, I am not sure how well your camera is with noise at a higher ISO level, BUT you can always use noiseware...

[~AJ~]

Originally Posted by inkista

specifically, how to use the center AF point, half-press, and recompose.

Yep, this is what I do. I use the centre AF point, half press & recompose

I can't afford an external flash right now (& TBH, would rather not use a flash if I don't have to as I just love natural light), so usually am shooting near a window or with the light behind me, coming onto my subjects as much as possible - but even on a nice, overcast day where I'm getting nice even light & more importantly, no glare, I just can't get the focus right & it's so damn frustrating! Mum told me today to just go back to shooting in auto for a while to keep the practice up but since I started shooting in full manual mode, I HATE using auto coz I can't control the focus point hahaha!!!!!

Ok, so basically I should just have my apeture set to a higher number & bump up my ISO yeah? What's the best f/stop to use for portraits then? When I did a workshop with a portrait photographer, she said she doesn't go above f/8.0 or lower than 1/250 (coz she is photographing babies & toddlers, hence needing the fast SS hehe). Does this sound ok, or is the apeture now too high a number - should I just stick to say... f/5.6? Or should I go even higher?

[lemonjenny]

I'd highly recommend studying a depth of field calculator, like the one that was linked to. Play around with it and start to learn more about aperture and depth of field. There really is no one right answer, as there are many many factors. How far you're standing from your subject, how "deep" your subject goes, how you want your photo to look, aperture, etc. That's my best advice!