Foreground/Background Focus Issue

[pado]

Hi,
This might sound like a simple question, but I'm having problems figuring out how to take a picture that focuses on a subject in the foreground, but still allows for the background to be in focus as well. I have a Canon EOS XTi and tried to manually open the aperture up to its highest setting, but then the camera takes too long to take a photo and I don't keep my hands steady enough so the picture is blurry. Isn't there an automatic setting that does this? I tried going through all of the automatic settings and couldn't find one. Am I missing something? Thank you for the help in advance.

 

[Jarmo]

Use small aperture (big F number) and up the ISO. Or better yet get a tripod so you can use long exposure time. You can also try manually focusing between your subject and the backround so that both are in relative good focus.

 

[oldmacman]

Hi,
This might sound like a simple question, but I'm having problems figuring out how to take a picture that focuses on a subject in the foreground, but still allows for the background to be in focus as well. I have a Canon EOS XTi and tried to manually open the aperture up to its highest setting, but then the camera takes too long to take a photo and I don't keep my hands steady enough so the picture is blurry. Isn't there an automatic setting that does this? I tried going through all of the automatic settings and couldn't find one. Am I missing something? Thank you for the help in advance.

Actually, going to the highest F-stop number (smallest opening) likely won't yield the best results. Each lens has a sweet spot for sharpness and DOF and any value after the sweet spot will start introducing aberrations and softness to the image. Somewhere around f11-f13ish is a good place to start. You should also check the hyper-focal distance for your camera with the lens/focal length/distance combination. Hyper-focal distance will yield your best results for getting almost everything in focus.

 

[OrionsByte]

Staying on the low end of your lens' focal length would help too (i.e. don't zoom in too much).

 

[pgriz]

You're really talking about depth-of-field, where what you want (foreground, and subject) is in focus. An experienced photographer will use his or her knowledge to select an appropriate aperture (f/stop) which would give the correct amount of depth-of-field, and the correct focus point (which centers the depth-of-field range), and the correct focal length (since depth-of-field is related to both aperture and focal length). There's nothing automatic about this, unfortunately.