focus issue help

I have a new 50d and took some pics of a large prom group outdoors using 28-135 lens. Do I need to get a wider lens to get the whole group in focus. There were 7 couples and the ones on each end were not in focus. What am I doing wrong?

Which settings did you set your camera at?

iso 400 f/11 1/250. Looking at the picture, no one was really in focus.

Please post the image as it may help get an understanding of the actual size of the group.

It may be where you were focusing in relation to the group you were shooting. There is a lot of math involved if you want to get into the specifics of depth of field. Your three main things to consider is of course your Aperture (Which could have been stopped down I suppose), Focal Length of the lens, and the distance from you subject.

Also keeping in mind that your focus point is the center of where your DoF begins so you have to account for the fact that there is a certain amount of distance in front and behind where you hit that AF on.

Much better explanation can be had with a sample of this photo though.

here is one of the pics.

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It is tough for me to be sure on this laptop, but I think the focus was on the house, not the subjects.

For portraits, I'm almost always manual focus.

F/10 was a good choice, though.

1/250, f11 @ 28mm should have covered you, but I can't tell either where the focus is in the shot. Unless you have really shaky hands or have a bad lens I don't know.

I'm going to go with crappy lens or shaky hands. Are you able to get any sharp pictures with this lens?

Not familiar with the 50D, but the Canon software with the camera, you can call up the focus points and check it that way. It's in Zoom Browser EX. It's in the tool bar and it's called Show Auto Focus Points. I think that you have to check the image in RAW, but I'm not sure as that's all I shoot in. Hope that this is helpful. Although I don't use it much, it's helped me to find my answers when I've encountered problems. JMHO

Do you have a filter on the lens, that could be your problem

Naphtali14 wrote in post #12247671
I'm going to go with crappy lens or shaky hands. Are you able to get any sharp pictures with this lens?

I don't get many good pictures with this lens. I get much better focus using my 50mm or 85 primes. Those are amazing in my opinion. I'm just trying to figure out if it is possible to get a big group like this all in focus for next time or should I look into a 24-70? That seems to be the universal lens.