Advice please, 35L on 5d, too little dof for snapshots!

Hi everyone, I am having a slight problem with using my 35L as a snapshot lens under dim restaurant lights. The problem happens only if I need to take a picture of 2 or more people, and try to get all subjects in focus.

Since the 35 is pretty wide on a 5d, to capture a stomach and above shot I am about 2-3 feet away from the subject. Since I am so close, my dof is extremely small even if I am using f/3.2 .

I am already using iso3200 and manually choosing focus points to avoid dof shift from "focus and recompose". Most of the time I cannot maintain enough shutter speed if I stop down further.

It gets me frustrated when thin dof is working against me. Anyone using this combo for snapshots experience this? Thanks!!

Stand further back, so you have more distance between you and the subject, and crop the picture in PP

It's the nature of the low light ambient shot. Subject placement and framing is absolutely critical.

This is why wedding shooters use flash brackets or bounce flash. They need to stop down in order to gain sufficient DOF.

Get a flash and bounce it of the ceiling, you can stop down to your hearts content, and shoot at iso100 and it will still look like daylight in the room. You can also stand up close or far away as a humble 430ex can cover a pretty huge range.

+1 on the flash.

you can use low ISOs and avoid all the noise. Also the flash tends to work well in terms of auto white balance...pictures turn out less orangey yellow in tungsten light (not tha tit matters since you probably shoot RAW).

Standard Operating Procedure in restaurants when I don't want to be turbo-dork with a bracket and all that...

...is to bring the P&S. Even f/2.8 has deep enough depth of field for everything. I'll even use the flash - direct!

Fortunately I don't care much though - because it's just a snapshot.

When I'm in full wanker mode and/or paid, I'll do what the others suggested above - bracket (or at least bounce-able flash), good aperture, and usually ISO800 or so. It's still clean...we use Canon, remember.

JeffreyG wrote in post #6445749
It's the nature of the low light ambient shot. Subject placement and framing is absolutely critical.

This is why wedding shooters use flash brackets or bounce flash. They need to stop down in order to gain sufficient DOF.

+2.

It was shocking moving from the 40D to the 5D. I expected 1 stop more freedom from the better chip noise, but realize I have to stop the lens down to get sufficienty dof, so I end up in the same position. The DOF on the 5D at f/4 is like the 40D at f/2.8 - so its a wash.

just get people all on the same plane, and they'll be in focus regardless of the aperture. flash and small apertures really aren't the only solution most of the time.

Thanks everyone! I guess I will try move back and crop instead.

I wish I had your problem. I'm always wanting less DoF to isolate my subjects.