how-to? shoot a group shot where ppl are diagonally arranged

[piku]

just wondering if anyone have any tips... sometime i find myself (hopefully others as well) in a get-together with friends and family where a group of people are sitting diagonally away from me.

ie. 1-2-3-4, where person #1 is the closest and person #4 is the farthest away.

basically, what settings do people use to achieve a great shot where everyone is in-focus (in a well-lit setting, and/or a low-light setting)??? TIA.

[Olegis]

Two things come in mind - get a wide angle lens and use the smallest aperture available. These will hopefully get you the desired DOF.

[piku]

i find myself using the tamron 28-75 more and more recently. i guess i just need to find the sweet spot for doing better DOF. to those that have the lens, care to suggest ideas on which aperture you find yourself getting the best shots in the situation i described above??? TIA

[Olegis]

That depends, of course, on your distance from the objects. If you focus at hyperfocal distance, anything between half the distance to the focus point and infinity will be in focus.
Try this Hyperfocal Distance calculator (http://www.mountainstorm.com/HyperFocal/HyperFocal.html) to find what is the desired distance for the focal lengths and the apertures you use.

[piku]

thanks, will do.

update: yuck...java applet.

[GaryB]

The A-Dep mode might work for this (if you have it!) ?

Gary

[DaveG]

just wondering if anyone have any tips... sometime i find myself (hopefully others as well) in a get-together with friends and family where a group of people are sitting diagonally away from me.

ie. 1-2-3-4, where person #1 is the closest and person #4 is the farthest away.

basically, what settings do people use to achieve a great shot where everyone is in-focus (in a well-lit setting, and/or a low-light setting)??? TIA.

The simple answer is that you'll need all of the depth of field that your lens has. So you use a tripod and f16 or more. Focus on the second person from you. D of F works on the basis of 1/3 in front of the point of focus and 2/3 behind. Use the wide angle focal lengths of your lens, as there is more d of f with a wide angle for a given aperture than with a telephoto.

And you should cheat a little. If the closest person to you is on the right side in your viewfinder then pivot ("swing") the left side of the camera forward a tiny bit. The d of f in a regular camera is always parallel with the back of the camera so pivoting the camera like this puts the camera on more of the same angle as the group, requiring less d of f.

Now having said this you've created some problems for yourself. If you use the wide angle focal lengths you will get more foreground emphasis and the first person will look much larger than the fourth. A wide angle's perspective isn't particulalry flattering for portraits either.

A common mistake by a lot of photographers is to think of wide angles as either "group photo" lenses, or something they should use for the elusive "landscape" shot. They are neither or both, depending on the shot. But when you want to shoot a portrait of a single person, you'd use a lens in the 50 - 60mm range on a 10D (85-105 on 35mm). Those lenses' perspective and "flattening" effect is flattering and basically what you and they would want.

So now you are doing a portrait shot of four individuals that just happen to be standing together. Is there any reason you don't want this shot to be flattering? Of course not. When I shoot small groups like this I'd want to use my 50 mm lens (on a 10D). I lose unnecessary foreground and background, the perspective is pleasant and the background is likely to be nicely out of focus.

Which brings us back to the angled composition. In your example you will need all the d of f you can get and this means that using the 50mm focal length may not be an option. So unless you have a REALLY important reason for shooting the group in this configuration then change it.

[piku]

wowsa, thanks dave. lots of info to think about.

Which brings us back to the angled composition. In your example you will need all the d of f you can get and this means that using the 50mm focal length may not be an option. So unless you have a REALLY important reason for shooting the group in this configuration then change it.

as to that, i like doing candids of my friends. so some times, i need to get it fast--which i'll prolly have a hard time doing since i dont have a tripod nor the time to tell people "to freeze" whatever they are doing =p

all-in-all your insight is valuable. thanks and i'll give it a go.

[DaveG]

wowsa, thanks dave. lots of info to think about.

Which brings us back to the angled composition. In your example you will need all the d of f you can get and this means that using the 50mm focal length may not be an option. So unless you have a REALLY important reason for shooting the group in this configuration then change it.

as to that, i like doing candids of my friends. so some times, i need to get it fast--which i'll prolly have a hard time doing since i dont have a tripod nor the time to tell people "to freeze" whatever they are doing =p

all-in-all your insight is valuable. thanks and i'll give it a go.

I don't think then that you are really trying to do groups shots. The shots that you seem to want are more of a candid nature, and that's OK.

I'd isolate on one person who is doing something interesting. Then you can get by with a minimal d of f. The foreground and background will be out of focus and the viewer's eye will jump to the sharply focused subject.

In most areas of photography you'll find that circumstances will make you compromise from what you'd really like, to what's possible. If I want lots of depth of field I need small apertures which require lots of light, either with ambient or flash light. If I can't or don't want to come up with that amount of light, then I have to try something else.

One other thing to concern youself with is that every photo must posses a "unity". That means that one thing is going on. Many begiinning photographers will take a shot where there are (say) four people in their composition. These two on the right side are talking. Those two on the other side are looking at the wall. It's obviously one capture; but it's really two pictures, since there is no unity to it. It could work as two shots, but not as one. If all four people were looking at the same thing then it'd be OK, but at least in this example they aren't.

My point is that it is unlikely that four people will spontaneously create a composition with that necessary unity. Possible perhaps but I'd just try to tell the story with a few images rather than hoping to capture it with one.