Group Photo

[cdjr4@cox.net]

I'm having a little trouble with group photos - how to get everyone in sharp focus. Do you use all focal points? Thanks

[StewartR]

Personally I never use all focus points because I don't trust the camera to know which ones I care about and which ones I don't.

A-DEP mode is supposed to be designed for this sort of situation, I think, but I've never used it. Maybe somebody else could let us know whether it works.

I do it the old-fashioned way. Centre focus point, focus on somebody who's in the middle of the group (not front, not back), lock focus and recompose, aperture priority, consult DOF table, choose small enough aperture to get the DOF I need. If I don't have a DOF table, go with f/8. Job done and it takes 2 seconds.

[Gary_Evans]

I shoot a lot of groups and I focus in almost the same way as Stewart. The only difference is that I lock focus 1/3 of the way into the group

[Galaxy99]

may I ask what the DOF table is? f/8, 1/125 with flash is my way to go with indoor group shooting.

[airfrogusmc]

Its on the top of lens. You can use it to zone focus. For instance if you shoot allot candids in a very dark room you can use the scales to help you. There should be F stop #s when you look at the top of the lens. On my 35mm it has left to right 22 11 4 4 11 22. Turn off you auto focus. In green is the ft scale. Look at the two 11s as you look down at the lens. Now if you turn the lens so the 10 ft mark is a little to the right of the longer center line everything from about 4 ft to almost 20 ft will be in focus. Manually set your aperture to F 11 and do not move your focus on your lens. Do not worry if it doesn't look in focus through the view finder. The scales were clearer and easy to use on old FD lenses but the still can be used and WORK. Does this make any sense?

[Souwalker]

I shoot a lot of groups and I focus in almost the same way as Stewart. The only difference is that I lock focus 1/3 of the way into the group

How do you lock focus on a 350D? I am not talking about pressing the shutter half way, then recompose. Or was that what you meant? I read somewhere about the * button at the back (?)
Thanks
Pat

[ssim]

I will always manual focus on large groups. I don't find this cumbersome as I grew up having to do that and still use my medium format cameras that are manual focus. It does give the best results in my opinion. I do similar to Gary by focussing part way into the group.

[SkipD]

I will always manual focus on large groups. I don't find this cumbersome as I grew up having to do that and still use my medium format cameras that are manual focus. It does give the best results in my opinion. I do similar to Gary by focussing part way into the group.Ditto 100%.

Back in 'the day', all we had was manual cameras - manual focus, manual exposure. That's still the way I like to work a great percentage of the time. It lets me make the decisions rather than turning the choices over to a piece of silicon.

[StewartR]

I do it the old-fashioned way. Centre focus point, focus on somebody who's in the middle of the group (not front, not back), lock focus and recompose, aperture priority, consult DOF table, choose small enough aperture to get the DOF I need. If I don't have a DOF table, go with f/8. Job done and it takes 2 seconds.may I ask what the DOF table is? f/8, 1/125 with flash is my way to go with indoor group shooting.Its on the top of lens. You can use it to zone focus. For instance if you shoot allot candids in a very dark room you can use the scales to help you. There should be F stop #s when you look at the top of the lens. On my 35mm it has left to right 22 11 4 4 11 22. Turn off you auto focus. In green is the ft scale. Look at the two 11s as you look down at the lens. Now if you turn the lens so the 10 ft mark is a little to the right of the longer center everything from about 4 ft to almost 20 ft will be in focus. Manually set your aperture to F 11 and do not move your focus on your lens. Do not worry if it doesn't look in focus through the view finder. The scales were clearer and easy to use on old FD lenses but the still can be used and WORK. Does this make any sense?It might not make a lot of sense to Galaxy99, because you only get DOF scales on prime lenses, and both of the primes he has - 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8 - only show 22 0 22 on the lens barrel. Not terribly helpful...

I meant a DOF table like this one (http://www.dofmaster.com/doftable.html). I have a few in the pocket of my camera bag, for those amazingly infrequent occasions when I really care that much.

[StewartR]

FWIW, this used to be much easier in the old manual-focus days. Especially because lens design wasn't so advanced then, and zooms tended to be push-pull.

I used to have a Tamron 80-210mm zoom like this one. You can see all those coloured curved lines on the barrel: they show the depth of field at different apertures and different focal lengths. It really made things easy.

http://static.flickr.com/46/120261258_b9611a2af4.jpg

[chloeosmom]

Ive got a Sigma 70-300 that is a push and pull type. But when you look at it and what DOF it says, just to clarify, does that mean how much space will be in focus then, in front and behind the focus point?
B

[StewartR]

Ive got a Sigma 70-300 that is a push and pull type. But when you look at it and what DOF it says, just to clarify, does that mean how much space will be in focus then, in front and behind the focus point?I'm not familiar with that lens, but it should do.

If you look at the picture of the Tamron above, you'll see that it's focussed at roughly 4m/15ft (where the white line meets the distance scale). If you were using whatever aperture was indicated by the blue lines - I think it's f/8, you can see a little coloured line under the '8' on the aperture ring - then the zone of focus would extend from roughly 2.8m/9ft to 10m/30ft (where the blue lines meet the distance scale). You can also see immediately that at longer focal lengths you will have narrower depth of field.

I expect your Sigma should work in a similar fashion.