Sharpness in the eyes

[sarah_r.]

I have never had problems getting sharpness in the eyes with one kid (of course) as all the books and forums say

shoot for the eyes & you cant go wrong. But what do you do when you have 2,3, 4 or more kids in the picture?

where do you focus? sometimes they are moving, sometimes they wont stand near each other, so i am never quite

sure which spot to pick to make all the eyes sharp (and i dont always want to change aperture too drastically as

many parents are obsessed by the 'blurry background' photos)

[picturesque]

You estimate the depth in feet that you need in focus and pick something to focus on which is 1/3 of the way into that depth. Hopefully with kids, you have their faces (and eyes) mostly on the same plane. Study the info at DOF Master, and while you are at it, study and use the DOF guides. You have to work with possibilities and not just what you want the DOF to be.

[mrstubbs]

..."and i dont always want to change aperture too drastically as many parents are obsessed by the 'blurry background' photos..."

 

The only way around that ...is to reduce the aperture, and put a greater distance between subject and background. That way you get better dof for the eyes, and..the"blurry"background you like.

[manuel barrera houston,]

Do the blur after the fact with ps, lots of people and a low aperture someone will be out of focus

[matthew_newton]

As mentioned, you only have a certain depth of field. If all the eyes aren't within that range, you are going to have to close down the aperature more. You could also use a full frame camera, that will allow you to be closer to the subjects and use a somewhat smaller aperature to capture all of the eyes in focus, but the background is still further away, allowing it to be somewhat more blurred then you would be able to do with a reduced frame sensor.

[nathan_stiles]

If you tighten up to f11, and still want a blurry background-- move the kids farther from the background. As mentioned, you have to tighten up the aperture to get multiple moving kids sharp.

[sarah_r.]

ok, thank you for your help, just in time guys, am off out just now to do the shoot.

Will report back!

thanks!

SR

[sarah_r.]

ok, its now a total mystery to me.

I have taken a step back & thought about my aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, metering mode, iso and still

lately, the majority of my pictures are coming out blurred. Once upon a time, these setting did not give me this

result:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj300/mookle1974/sharpnessissues.jpg

 

85mm lens

iso 200

f6.3 at 200 shutter speed.

The session went well but i am still baffled by these shots, which are totally unusable...

[sarah_r.]

Could it have something to do with changing the Af point? - i have only the center AF point selected because i thought that would give me better focus in the center....

[imagesbylori]

i have the same problem sometimes! what the heck?

[mark_starr]

I had one camera that was always slightly off, and I could't figure out why until I put it on a tripod and shot a yardstick at a 45 degree angle. I would focus on a particular number on the stick and find that the actual focus was behind where I had focused - a trip back to the manufacturer cleared up the problem - worth a try perhaps-

Mark

[picturesque]

Did you use flash? If so, you can still get ghosting if the subject is moving fast, and particularly if the part in question is overexposed, as in brighter sunlight. The grass under his feet appears to be sharp, so I'd suspect motion in any case. 1/200th is still sometimes too slow if the motion is across the plane of the image and the subject is really moving, or you really jerked the camera when you shot.