Group portrait

I am attempting to take a shoulder portrait picture of 4 persons (2 sitting and

2 standing behind)using a Nikon D2H and Nikkor 85 mm f/1.4 lense. What should

be ideal auto-focus settings on the D2H?. I noticed that the persons sitting in

the front are focussed sharply but the persons standing behind appear slightly

out-of -focus and blurred. I am still a early learner on this camera and any

help from my experienced friends in the forum would be highly appreciated.

The rule of thumb is, twice as far is infocus behind your focus point as in front of it. That in

mind, just take shots and stop down the aperture until you get the desired result. F1.4 will

almost certainly have to short a depth of field. Maybe try 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8. Hopefully 8 will do it.

But remember - set your focus point 2/3 of the distance forward between the rear and front

faces. If you do this properly, the first aperture to have the faces sharp will be the one you

want.

Try f/8, stand back, pick your favorite AF sensor/mode and fire away.

First, a few things that may help. Use a shorter focal length lens, 50mm or less, and an aperture of f/8 or less. Set the focus at approximately 1/3 into the group (you may find manual focus better for this).

Using a shorter lens will not increase depth of field. If the size of the image remains the same, the depth of field is the same with any focal length lens. (In more technical terms this is called the "ratio of reproduction".) In fact, using a shorter lens and getting in closer would cause the closer persons to look larger.

 

This is a good situation for a tripod, stopping down and manual focus.

Sukumaran,<br>

<br>

My opinion this is a manual focus situation. Focus behind the

faces in the front row and in front of those in the back. 1/3

into the group sounds fine to me. A tripod is good. The 85/1.4 is

a good choice. I dont think a 50/1.8 or 1.4 would be a

problem at all. For a shoulder portrait on DX I would not go

shorter than 50mm.<br>

<br>

It sounds to me like you focused on the front row, that or the

camera made the choice and you used too large a lens aperture. I

recommend using aperture preferred exposure mode for this subject.

I want control of the DOF. Keep an eye on the shutter speed the

camera is setting.<br>

<br>

Something I like very much is to set the AF-C and AF-S mode

priority to Release. Please see custom settings a1 and a2, page

175. Then I set custom setting a4 to AF-ON Only. Please see page

177. Now you press the AF-ON button to focus and release to lock.

I use AF-C mostly but AF-S when Im using the SB-800 in poor

light. Now you can auto focus on the faces in the front row and

step or move your tripod 1/3 of the distance from the front row

towards the back. Using the AF system this way is very much

manual focus logic with AF ease and speed. I have the above

custom settings saved in my custom settings bank B.<br>

<br>

If I were shooting a single subject with such a fast prime lens

and using a wide aperture Id definitely prefer manually

focusing on the matte surface of the focus screen. Id focus

and shooting without recomposing. With a single subject Id

be focusing on the nearest eye to the lens.<br>

<br>

When you get the white balance right to begin with it really

helps with skin color and tone. Please see <u>Preset White

Balance</u> starting on page 57 to page 60 anyway. I generally

use my Minolta Color Meter II as its quick and easy but Ive

use the method described here with the white side of a Kodak Gray

Card. I find the WB set this way or with the Color Meter II is

often far more accurate than using the cameras Auto WB.<br>

<br>

Sometimes I just cant seem to get the WB set correctly

after the fact. If I check the histogram for each color channel

in Photoshop the problem is usually that one color channel is

clipped. If you have the time is much better to get it right when

you shoot.<br>

<br>

If you use copy or laser paper for the white reference be careful.

Some of these papers are not really white. A Kodak Gray Card is a

known standard and worth the price.<br>

<br>

I hope this helps.<br>

<br>

Best,<br>

<br>

Dave Hartman.

Thank you Dave for your succint write up and guidance. Appreciate it very much. I shall work on this over the weekend....Regards