Setting focus for family portraits using 50mm f1.8 ?

[mjoshi]

I'm trying to take picture of family with 4 people in a picture, I want to use 50mm F1.8 lens for this picture. Confusion I'm having is how do I frame this shot so that everyone is picture comes out in focus and sharp ? I've Canon 40D and on that there is 9-point focus system so I can choose where I should be focusing my camera on.

If I use f1.8 to f4.0 to get nice blured background in that case problem comes when I pick any one focus point rest of faces goes out of focus. I know I can go with smaller aperture like f8 to f11 to have everyone in focus but then I'll be compromising on bokeh. Is there a way to have both ?

--
Thanks
M

 

[canuck dave]

A 50mm (80mm equivalent ) is not the best choice for a group photo, and neither is attempting to shoot wide open. Unless your subjects are all lined up (in plane) you will almost certainly have unsharpness, somewhere.

I would suggest using your 'kit' lens at about f8. You can do some testing beforehand to have more confidence with the results.

 

[lucid484]

not sure fow to get such a large group in focus with the background blurred.....why not take a series of photo's stepping up the aperture 1 step for each shot....should be fairly quick if mounted on a tripod. And pick the one that has the effect you want and remember it for the future.

 

[mibu2011]

Do it in post? Focus on eyes in the front. F8-F11, then Gauzien (is that how you spell it?) blur the background in post. Just an alternative idea.

 

[teknir]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking

I'm a fan of shooting HDR in certain situations and heard about Focus Stacking, which is similar in theory, on a pod cast. I think this is another post processing method you could try that might be just what you are looking for. Have fun!

Todd

--
Photography is FUN! http://tkushnir.smugmug.com

 

[Tim Hutson]

I don't know what kind of background you want to have but if you increase depth of focus by using smaller apertures, move your subjects farther from the background so that the background is beyond the focus depth. Shooting indoors might make this more difficult if you only have smaller rooms. But, an outdoor portait also has a lot of appeal.

 

[mjoshi]

Thank you all, we are planning a shoot outdoor with friends, they are getting married and wanted to do a casual shoot in park. I loved the way 50mm F1.8 blurs the background and hence picked that one to shoot 2 adults and one kid in same frame. Looks like I might end up with this one on post processing. I've got some shots with my 75-300 IS (which is more like consumer lens) with good blur at F4.5 and F5.

Here is one picture from 75-300 IS at F5, only post processing I did was convert to B&W and little bit of cropping.



--
Thanks
M

 

[boyd2]

I'm trying to take picture of family with 4 people in a picture, I want to use 50mm F1.8 lens for this picture. Confusion I'm having is how do I frame this shot so that everyone is picture comes out in focus and sharp ? I've Canon 40D and on that there is 9-point focus system so I can choose where I should be focusing my camera on.

Best is to use the center focus point, that one works best with lenses of f2.8 and faster. Focus with that one and recompose.

If I use f1.8 to f4.0 to get nice blured background in that case problem comes when I pick any one focus point rest of faces goes out of focus. I know I can go with smaller aperture like f8 to f11 to have everyone in focus but then I'll be compromising on bokeh. Is there a way to have both ?

Depends on the distance and how far people are apart (the distance you need to cover with DOF). Important to know: at these distances your DOF is 1/3 in front and 2/3 behind the focus point. Try to 'fit' people in this range as best as possible. Still you might need to close down more than f4. As said here already, with more distance to the background, you can still get a blurred background. And try to avoid very light spots in the background, which may look ugly out of focus.

When you have enough time, you could use a tripod. With little DOF, any movement by you or the subjects can throw things out of focus, a tripod eliminates movement of the camera. And with a tripod, you could also have a look at the focus in live view with enlargement (turn the brightness of the LCD up all the way on the 40D) and adjust focus manually. BTW, the 40D has a DOF preview button It gives an impression of DOF by closing down the aperture. In practice however, DOF depends a lot on the final size of the image. For a small web image, you can easily get away with a f2.8 shot, while a large print may need f8 to look sharp.

Best, Boyd