DoF Question

I took some group photos today and found my foreground subjects were in focus and the people at the back were blurry. They were indoor shots. What is the best camera setting to use. I have an XT. Perhaps the A-DEP setting?

There is no best setting to use. A-DEP can do it, but other modes can also.

A depth of field preview button can be very useful if you want to know what is going to be in focus and what will be out.

Otherwise, setting the aperture far away from wide open will help deepen the depth of field. If your aperture had been wide open, or near wide open, then that would explain a narrow depth of field.

---Bob Gross---

Rick, have a look at this.

http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html

I don't find the DOF preview button too helpful, the display gets too dark to be practically useful for me. Maybe if there's LOTS of light around.

Contrary to Tim's experience, I find the DOF button quite helpful, even when the viewfinder gets darker. I notice that when it gets darker, more of the picture is sharper, and when the aperture is wide enough that the DOF button doesn't change the viewfinder image much, then the DOF remains narrow.

Sometimes just the mere fact that the viewfinder gets darker shows me that the DOF will be wide enough to get more of the picture in focus, even if it is enough darker that I can't see the subjects as well.

You have better eyes than me mate!

If you know the width of the group & the distance you have available to get away from them, then you can pick the lens to use & look up the DOF table. Then it's just a matter of cheating the focus about 1/3 of the way into the group after focusing. This doesn't have to be hard if you just do your homework ahead of time, make & shoot some test set-ups, & learn your equipment. Put the cam on "M" & make it do what you want it to do so you don't have to worry about settings. Then you can concentrate on uncle Bob with his mouth open & aunt Sally who's looking at something off to the right.

tim wrote:
Rick, have a look at this.

http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html

I don't find the DOF preview button too helpful, the display gets too dark to be practically useful for me. Maybe if there's LOTS of light around.

Thanks for the link (how is that pronounced dooofmaster or dufmaster?)

I switched to EF because my eyes got too bad for the FD lenses so I agree with Tim on the usefulness of DOF preview. But I do figure that if the view gets too dark to see it must be in focus.....