Like the pictures and poses etc, but you should have changed the aperture to keep everyone in focus. #1 is less obvious than #2.....but it is there as well.
Welcome Meghan ! Could you provide some information on the lens you were using? With a little more information, I am sure you will get some great tips. Lots of good folks here to help you out.
I know I've done this and smacked myself later. You need to take care with more than one subject in the frame to ensure that you've got enough DOF to keep everyone in focus. Unless you can guarantee that everyone's eyes are on the same plane, I would strongly suggestion you go f8 or better for group shots like this.
One more suggestion on the DOF. Remember that it is to both sides of the focal plane, so focus on the middle of the depth, in this case the young man. You will still need a much smaller aperture than what you used.
I like the first one, cool shot.
Second one is tilted left and looks like you took in on a dark day with slow shutter speed. There is some motion blur in that one. Depending on how close you were standing and your lens and mm you may have gotten away with F4 if you had focused on the person in the middle.
I like your choice of black and white.
Thanks for the feedback everybody! I was completely kicking myself after I uploaded it to my computer and saw the little girl in the front was out of focus. Daver, I was using a Canon 50mm f/1.8 for these shots. The first was taken at f/3.2 for 1/200 and the second was taken at f/3.5 for 1/800. It wasn't super dark out but it was overcast. You can tell it's sunny because they are squinting. Luckily these were for fun and not paid.
You might be able to reclaim a little bit of sharpness in the first one in Photoshop. Check out the tutorial pages for Dgrin if you need some ideas.
Unfortunately I don't have Photoshop, only Lightroom. I am looking at getting it but probably not until the new year. I had CS4 on my old computer but it crashed so I bought a Mac and sadly it wasn't compatible.
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Particularly with # 2 it looks like you needed to stop down a bit. The DOF is too shallow to get all the people in sharp.
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Second one is tilted left and looks like you took in on a dark day with slow shutter speed. There is some motion blur in that one. Depending on how close you were standing and your lens and mm you may have gotten away with F4 if you had focused on the person in the middle.
I like your choice of black and white.
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Unfortunately I don't have Photoshop, only Lightroom. I am looking at getting it but probably not until the new year. I had CS4 on my old computer but it crashed so I bought a Mac and sadly it wasn't compatible.