Canon 60D focus help needed

When shooting more than one person, for instance a group of people and you want everyone to be in focus and tack sharp what focus mode should my camera be in <center focus> <all focus points>?

When I shoot and set focus point to be in the center on on my subject it seems that other items in the photo are sharper than the item I was focusing on.

What is the proper way to do this?

For groups where you have more than one plane of focus, you need to adjust your settings for deeper depth of field...

It may be time to slow the shutter speed enough to need a tripod or else bust out a flash and put more light on them.

Time to learn the basics of exposure and how it affects depth of field (as Flying Photog has suggested).

As an example lets take a 60D with the 18-55mm lens, shooting at f/16 and a subject distance of 5 feet. You can do these same calculations by going to http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html. The "near limit" on depth of field will be 3.9 feet and the far limit will be 6.96 feet. So something closer than about 4 feet and further away than about 7 feet will start to be out of focus. But there is a bush at 6 feet and you would like to draw attention away from the bush. Change the f-stop to f/8 and now at 5 feet subject distance the near limit is 4.38 and the far is 5.82, so th ebush would start to be fuzzy. OK, everyone leaves the picture except for one person and you would like that person to be in focus but everthing else pretty much fuzzy. Set the lens to f/4 (I think the 18-55 wil go there) and the near limit becomes 4.67 feet and the far limit 5.38. Pretty much everything will be fuzzy to some degree except your object at 5 feet.

Something tells me you are looking for a simple solution, so try using the A-DEP shooting mode with auto AF point selection. Make sure you get an active AF point on both near and far areas of your subject(s).

Once you get one that you are satisfied with, have a look at the exposure settings that the camera used. Aperture is the key setting to watch here and its value will vary according to focal length, subject distance, and required depth of field.

I never even noticed if my 60d had A dep?
I didnt think it did.

jhayesvw wrote in post #14602276
I never even noticed if my 60d had A dep?
I didnt think it did.

It doesn't. A-DEP is on the Rebels only. Seems no one actually answered the question the OP asked though, with regard to focus points. While he should be more aware of depth of field when talking a group picture, using all the focus points may, or may not help. While useful for expansive landscapes IMHO, if you're photographing 6 or 7 people, multiple focus points will automatically determine who will be in focus, and will perhaps select one or two people. I personally like to control the results with a single focus point and increase the depth of field to get multiple subjects in focus. BTW if its a big enough group, not everyone is going to be tack sharp.

Although an easy fix is nice sometimes, I really want to progressively move forward in my photography skills. I don't mind the hard work and studying of the basics in an effort to become better at my hobby.

mdaddyrabbit wrote in post #14602879
Although an easy fix is nice sometimes, I really want to progressively move forward in my photography skills. I don't mind the hard work and studying of the basics in an effort to become better at my hobby.

Most things you do will require compromises to one degree or another. The goal is to choose the compromises that best meet your objectives, in photography as in life. For group pictures in any kind of reasonable focus, you need enough depth of field. A rudimentary understanding of the calculations for depth of field is very helpful.

In addition, are you familiar with the depth of field button on the right hand of the camera''s lens mount? When the aperture is set to smaller than wide open and you focus and then press this button, it gives you an approximation through the view finder of the depth of field you'll get and the amount of light that will be hitting the sensor. Its not perfect, but is useful for group shots.

Thanks mwsilver, I appreciate your help with the advice.

Conversely, you can stop down more and/or focus on somebody in the middle or towards the front, but more the very front of the group to get more people in acceptable focus...