What happened to my photos?

I took pictures at a family gathering yesterday. I hate the way the pictures came out.

I've been using this camera for 4 or 5 years; you would thing that I would be answering questions not asking.

I took them with my 40D, 24-70, 580 EXII

The one with the bigger group is probably the best of the bunch. The focus just doesn't seem to be right. I want to blame the flash. I think it would have been better with just natural light.

The first one: 1/125, 3.5, iso 250

The Second: 1/60, 4.5, iso 250

Using flash would be no reason for any focus issues and in this case most likely helped fill in shadows caused by hats, etc. It's possible your subjects were moving and the focus issue is actually a blurring issue from motion. Possibly it was even your movement of the camera during exposure.

In #1 the background is sharper than the people. If you used autofocus, it may have locked onto the space between two subjects' heads.

Yeah, the first one looks like af grabbed the trees; second one looks like camera shake, to me.

Thanks for your response.

This one the camera is on a table with the timer to trigger. Me in the picture on the right.

1/60 aperture value 4.5, 250 iso

I tend to stay in the lower aperture value range for some reason. I think it is because I paid extra for 2.8 and question way I would stop down. I wondered if that was my problem?

Or is my high priced lens out of calibration?

You paid for 2.8 so it would be available when you need it for low light shooting or narrow depth of field, neither of which is necessary in this sort of a shoot; definitely want to stop down more for these sorts of things. That said, something looks off here, still; where is your focus point?

I always focus with the center focus dot then recompose. On the group, I think I just aimed at the center of group making sure not to focus past the group to the trees.

1/60 might be too long an exposure to expect that many people to hold still enough. They'd already frozen for the time it took you to run out front and take your place in the frame.

4.5 with two-plus rows of subjects, maybe the DoF was too shallow to get clarity on the four in front and the others behind them. There must be three or four feet separating the faces of the two men in back from the faces of the people kneeling.

Or else those camouflage uniforms work really, really well . . .

dcsmith40D wrote in post #16562046
I always focus with the center focus dot then recompose. On the group, I think I just aimed at the center of group making sure not to focus past the group to the trees.

Right; my concern was which person you focused on. There are a lot of solid colors in there that might not allow focus to lock properly. That camo may baffle it pretty good, too.

It may very well have been the camo on the tall guy that I focused on.

Pick a face to focus on when shooting a group like that; you'll have better lines/contrast for the AF system to grab a hold of. See if that makes a difference with the next time you do a shoot like that.

I will do it. I got a lazy and didn't think about it making a difference. Thanks for the responses.