First time with shutter delay help

Hello,

Tried for the first time to take a family photo off a tripod with shutter delay (10 sec) so that we all could be in the photo. Used a 50mm f1.8 set to 1.8 to try to blur out the background. I don't really love the result but not sure what happened. Maybe the DOF was too shallow? Any insights would be helpful.

IMAGE LINK: https://troybracker.sm​ugmug.com …lbum/n-nph5Rv/i-KkXDbfm/A

Everyone looks to be well in focus to me. Does your lens have image stabilization requiring it to be Off when on a tripod.
Did you use your DOF preview.

I don't see any huge issues with it. The only outlier is you have leaves about the groups head that are in focus, while you have a nice deep blur otherwise on everything non-family. It also needs to be straightened. If feels like everyone is leaning left a bit. You can see using the window frame your angle is a bit off. Easy to fix post though... just a little rations. That and the guy in the dark blue shirt is actually leaning to the left of image, which exaggerates the feeling.

Otherwise I like it. Not sure what you are seeing that I am not....

Cheers

Thanks for the input. The lens does not have IS.

I am the guy in the blue and it appears that I am leaning in because I just moved from behind the camera into the shot. I need to get faster, it seems!

Not sure that I am familiar with a DOF preview? Tell me more about that

I don't remember if the 7D2's wifi adapter allows remote control with Canon's camera connect app with your smartphone. If it does, I highly recommend. I've used it for family photos with my 5D4. I also controlled the environment and had backdrop and flash. But if your concern is focus, you can have pretty good control with a remote app: it lets you have the same functions as live view. Once I composed and focused on a center point, I hid my phone right before I fired. But also, as a general guide, you can side with caution and have and have an aperture smaller (greater DOF) than what you normally might think. In your photo, for example, the trees are pretty far away in relation to your camera and family. It can still stay pretty blurred when stopping down more if you'd like everyone to be in total focus.

You could look up shallow DOF, there's probably 1000's of threads on the topic. You placed 5 people into a frame, set the aperture to f1.8, and the girl to the left most of the frame is OOF. Happens. All you really need to do is use f2.8, probably ISO 400, and a shutter speed of 1/60th, since it's on a tripod anyway and focus on the person closest to the camera. Seems the gentleman in the middle is further away from camera than the young lady on the left of frame. So, focus should have been on her and stop down the lens. We all love to shoot wide open, but, that opens up another can of worms.

As for DOF preview, there's a button on your camera that will allow you to check critical sharpness at your aperture/iso/shutter speed settings, but, I've never found it useful (personally).

I also see the guy on the right having an arm decidedly OOF. The other good thing about digital images: it's extremely easy to create a blur in post processing and almost impossible to get good enough detail in an area that's OOF

Thanks for all the input.

I was trying to make sure that the background was blurred out as it was not appealing but maybe went to far with stopping down and made my DOF too narrow. I suppose it also could be that the 50 STM is not quite as sharp stopped all the way down?

duckster wrote in post #18880319
Thanks for all the input.

I was trying to make sure that the background was blurred out as it was not appealing but maybe went to far with stopping down and made my DOF too narrow. I suppose it also could be that the 50 STM is not quite as sharp stopped all the way down?

this is true for most lenses ... basically all of them.

you will also find that the center is sharper than the edges, if the photo shown has not been cropped, you might find that keeping the subjects away from the edge a bit will help sharpen things up.

that said, i do think that the left and right subjects seem to be closer to the camera than the person in the center, and also seem to be the least sharp, so the thin DoF might be doing a double whammy on them with the edge softness.

PS. underexposing a bit and using a flash (even the pop up one) can help make the subjects pop off the background a little

I think your camera is tilted up a bit causing the window frame to appear leaning. It looks like your center target is about belly-button height, so I'd suggest next time raise the camera higher so the focal plane is perpendicular to the ground. Also, a little fill flash would be nice here.

Thanks for the tips. We may have had a little curve to our line up which may have altered the distance a bit.

I will try some fill flash next time as well. I tried to position everyone so that there was not much crop in the PP

duckster wrote in post #18880093
Not sure that I am familiar with a DOF preview? Tell me more about that

Push and hold the big button on the front of the camera while looking through the viewfinder. You'll preview the DOF. Change the aperture as you hold the button. Watch the DOF change as your change the aperture.

DoF preview is pointless with the lens wide open.

Just sayin'