Photographing two or more people...

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BertieTBE

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For the pros and enthusiasts among you, this is going to sound like a bit of a silly question....but as I discovered recently, to a beginner it's not all that obvious.

When I take a picture of two people, who do I make my focus point? It it a good idea to focus in between the two people?

What about when there's more than two people?

What aperture is ideal for taking a picture of two people in good light, while looking for maximum sharpness, and keeping the focus on the people's faces?

Many thanks.

Ben
 
The camera can only focus on one distance from the camera, therefore to cover two or more people at different distances you need to use a smaller aperture so that the DOF (Depth of Field) is sufficient to cover the range of distance involved. So for example if you have people at 9ft and 12ft the best place to focus would be at about 10ft. There is usually more DOF behind the focus point than in front, so 1/3 in is a good bet.

You may find this online calculator helpful to see what different results have for various lens focal lengths and apertures. http://dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
 
artyman said:
You may find this online calculator helpful to see what different results have for various lens focal lengths and apertures. http://dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
Click to expand...

OP I use this ^^ a lot, it's very useful when your in situations your not used to.

If you have an Android phone, there are also Free DOF calculators on the Google Play app store.

So for example, with my 50mm lens, set for f/1.8 at a distance of 5m, anything within +/- 0.7m should be in perfect focus and anyone standing more than 35cm (or for arguements sake 1foot/12inches) behind or in front of my subject, will be out of focus.
 
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That's really helpful, thank you very much! Will need to study this more fully to fully understand it. Bedtime reading sorted....:)
 
BertieTBE said:
That's really helpful, thank you very much! Will need to study this more fully to fully understand it. Bedtime reading sorted....:)
Click to expand...

Sounds like fun, though it may be more than one night's work :)

Depth of field is a key aspect of creative picture taking. It is highly variable and the main controls are lens aperture, focal length, and shooting distance (though camera format, print/output size and viewing distance also play a part - basically anything that changes image magnification).

It is made a bit more tricky because the relationships are not linear, but with a bit of practise you will get a pretty good nose for it. Experienced photographers rarely use DoF calculators (though DoFmaster.com is good). I have a few key numbers printed inside the lens cap as a guide, but when in doubt or it's looking a bit marginal, just take a shot and zoom in on the LCD to see what you've actually got.

After a bit of reading, try some experiments at different settings. You'll soon get the hang of it :thumbs:
 
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