How to set focus on everything in scene?

pretzelz · Jul 4, 2009

Hi everyone,

I'm having a problem trying to photograph table-top mechano model scenes, and get the focusing correct, which is to simply keep everything in focus.

At the moment I am without a digital camera, and looking to buy a (hopefully entry level) one.

My first ever digital camera, (entry level) a 1.3 mega pixed Fuij camera (with viewfinder!) did a great job of getting everything in the scene in focus. Whether it was near the camera or further back in the scene. However with other modern cameras I've borrowed and tried, even on the macro setting, they seem to auto choose which distance objects to focus on, and blur the rest.

Is there a camera you know of, that can keep the type of scene I'm trying to photograph, and keep it all in focus? (another fuiji camera perhaps?)

- I've uploaded a photo of a scene I tried to photograph recently, and you'll see the focusing issue. (taken with a Canon IXUS 430)

http://www.educet.co.uk/badfocus.jpg

Now here's a look at a similar scene, taken with my 10 year old 1.3 mega pixel Fuji MX-1200 camera:

http://www.educet.co.uk/infocus.jpg

As you can see, the second photo taken from the old camera keeps everything in focus, both near and far objects. But I have yet to find a camera that does this. So -- any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Thank you!

HeatherHeininger · Jul 4, 2009

If it's digital, put it in manual focus. Then you get to choose what's in focus and what's not.

I hope that helps....at least that's what helped on my digital camera. :sexywink:

Have a great night!
-Heather

bigtwinky · Jul 4, 2009

You need to watch what aperture you are set at. If you have a wide aperture (1.4, 2.8, 4.0,..), your depth of field will be very shallow and thus many things could be out of focus.

I looked at the EXIF data for your image and the aperture used was f/2.8 with a shutter speed of 1/60. That is getting a bit slow to avoid camera shake.

Make sure to use a tripod. Then set your aperture to a small amount such as f/16 and let the camera decide what shutter speed to use. As you are on a tripod, exposure time doesn't matter too much. Use a cable release or the timer on the camera to set off the picture.

spudgunr · Jul 4, 2009

Expanding on what bigtwinky said, use plenty of light to light up your subject. A lot of light (even light so it is pleasing) will allow your camera to use a smaller aperature (this lets in less light, so you need more), but that smaller aperature is what lets everything be in focus. In the bad focus example you gave the aperature was as big as possible to let in light but that caused the focus issues.