DOF, sharpness, and distance to subject question

[MReid]

Really over thinking it.
1.4 is not blurry, you just need some experience to know how to manage the depth of field and what you want to be in focus.
If I were you I would shoot at F-4 and work your way to f-2.8.

Focus on the eyes and go shoot. The depth of field will take care of itself.

 

[MReid]

Not to be argumentative at all but this data for depth of field in front of the focus point and beyond is all well and good but it does not take into account variation between copies of lenses and all the front and back focus problems which must be dealt with first.

....so it is kind of, "in a perfect world data".

 

[mommy-medic]

wow thats a lot of info from everyone! Thank you.

I did some more reading and discovered some fine tuning I could do on my camera with the prime lens. Not having the focus pyramid, I took several shots of my computer keyboard at an angle so that different letters were different lengths from the lens. I was focusing consistantly on one letter and the focus was consistently a little "off" (would be the next letter), so I learned how to adjust it a few points so that what I think I am focusing on in the eyepiece turns out to be what is in best focus in the finished image. (no, it wasn't diopter issues, it was the lens being just slightly "off" in distance). Sorry, I don't know the technical terms (microadjustments?) of that but it helped as well.

 

[LightSpeed]

It's really very simple.
Some how or another, people have found a way to make photography harder than it really is.

It's just time and light babe. Nothing else.