Help needed for blurring on right side

[DizzyV6P]

I took this picture at a recent political fundraiser. For some reason, the right side of the picture seems all blurry while the left side is sharp.

I shot in RAW and used Bibble Lite to post-process. I sharpened as much as possible w/o introducing too many artifacts and used noise ninja to clean up the rest. I had my focus set on center focus. In hindsight, maybe I should have put it into nine point focus. I had just finished a Homecoming shoot a week before this and had it preset already to only the center focal point. I aimed the center point on the face of the guy in the center with the red tie.

Any tips on how to prevent this blur?
EXIF Details:
F-Number: F/2.8
Exposure Time: 0.0166 sec. 1/60
Exposure Program: Manual
ISO Speed: 200
Flash Mode: Fired
Tamron 24-75 f/2.8
Canon 580EX Flash
http://images30.fotki.com/v481/photos/5/54353/5509124/HondaX-vi.jpg

Thanks for any help anyone can provide!

[cl photos]

Your depth of field was to short. Try using f8 or higher, that way everything is in focus.

[KurtAlden]

As the previous guy says, your depth of field was too shallow. Looking at the numbers (I'm just learning about DOF and find it really interesting hence me measurebating a little)...

Aperture is f/2.8

Your lens is a 24/75 and looking at the picture and gestimating, if you were about 4 metres away from your subjects with a 30mm focal length you'd get around 5 feet DOF with 3 feet behind, hence them being out of focus.

Opening up to f/4 would give you another couple of feet behind, as would taking a big step backwards.

Have a look at http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html and put in a few wide open values, it's amazing how fast the DOF goes down when you open up wide. Novice nifty fifty owners (ie, me) beware!

[|)\/8]

Agree with what was mentioned above. I did some selective sharpening, of course if I had the original raw file I could probably do a better job.

http://www.dykstra.us/images/HondaX-vi_s.jpg

[DizzyV6P]

Ahhh! Thanks! I'll keep that in mind next time. It was a SMALL side room in the restaurant and I was basically at the door shooting at that angle. That Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 is looking mighyt good at this point.

Thanks for the sharpening! That looks great!

[jpthomas27]

It's all in the F-stop you used. Stay above F8 or so and you would be fine.