My family's session...with a vent

JulieLawsonPhotography

Yesterday we all gathered at my middles sister's house for a last minute supper, with the intention of taking a group photo. It was a lot of fun with great food, as usual. The guys did some silly stuff and I talked my family into doing the whole "jump" shot. They thought I was silly, but when they saw the results we couldn't stop laughing.

My vent is this...I took shots of my brother, sisters and I. I used my remote to trigger the camera and every single one is out of focus. In hindsight, I should have shot in either aperture priority or manual to get a wider aperature. I had out of focus issues with all group shots....for the most part. Then, I got that stage fright syndrome again. I hate posing people, because i dont' know how to pose people. It's like i go blank. UGH!
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ShepsMom

Julie, these are great, especially the whole family ones. I can see you with a remote

You have a beautiful family!!

Sam

Julie,

Can you explain: "I should have shot in either aperture priority or manual to get a wider aperature. I had out of focus issues with all group shots"

What camera settings did you use? How many focus points?

I can't really see where the focus is in these small web size images, so I can't tell if it's a matter of focus point, or a DOF issue.

OH, and you might want to try and hide the remote a little better.

Sam

ShepsMom

I found one, girl at the top right on picture #7 isn't as sharp as the rest 3.

JulieLawsonPhotography

Sam wrote:

Julie,

Can you explain: "I should have shot in either aperture priority or manual to get a wider aperature. I had out of focus issues with all group shots"

What camera settings did you use? How many focus points?

I can't really see where the focus is in these small web size images, so I can't tell if it's a matter of focus point, or a DOF issue.

OH, and you might want to try and hide the remote a little better.

Sam

I know, the remote. In the ones posted, it isn't as obvious. I wanted to get everyone in focus, of me and my siblings, but every one of them blurred out. I have a nikon d40x, it has 3 focus points i think. I'm just assuming that if I shot in manual I could get more of us in focus. Maybe the camera just had trouble focusing?

Scott_Quier

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

I know, the remote. In the ones posted, it isn't as obvious. I wanted to get everyone in focus, of me and my siblings, but every one of them blurred out. I have a nikon d40x, it has 3 focus points i think. I'm just assuming that if I shot in manual I could get more of us in focus. Maybe the camera just had trouble focusing?

Getting more of you in focus is a question of appropriate setting of the aperture to get the desired/necessary Depth of Field (DOF). Shooting in manual just means you have direct control of the aperture rather than leaving it to the computer in your camera to decide for you.

General practice - for a three row pose, you need something like f/5.6 or f/8 and focus on the middle row. For 4 rows, same aperture (depending on camera to subject distance), but you still focus on the second row of the group.

Research DOF a little bit and you'll discover that 2/3 (+/-) of your DOF will be behind the point of critical focus and only 1/3 (again, +/-) will be in front of the point of critical focus.