more than one person...who to focus?

DiskoJoe · Apr 5, 2012

Why has no one asked for a pic example here?

paigew · Apr 5, 2012

I dont have a specific pic...but when I was shooting my daughter and niece the other day I was wondering where to place the point. I normally go for the eyes. Here, I obviously would choose the girl looking at me but if they were both looking at me how do choose who gets the little red dot on them

. Didn't realize it would be such a difficult question!

DiskoJoe · Apr 5, 2012

Its not really a complicated question but people here can go overboard sometime. See here they are basically on the same plane, side by side. So you should be able to get both in focus pretty equally. This is a good way to go for family portraiture. Now if you had them staggered this would be a different story. That is when you would want to consider which to focus on or change your aperture to a longer depth of field.

Here read this tutorial. I found it to be very useful and easy to understand. Zeltsman really knew what he was doing.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/articles-interest/268210-guide-classic-portraiture.html

When I do portraits of couples I like to have them side by side. Then you just focus on the face and since they are both on the same plane both faces would be in focus.

Like this.......

sarah and david cross processed by DiskoJoe, on Flickr

KmH · Apr 5, 2012

In that shot, for all intents and purposes, the 3 eyes that can be seen are the same distance from the camera. Hence it wouldn't matter which eye you focused on because all of the eyes are in the plane of sharpest focus.

You may be discovering that doing photography well is a lot more complicated than you imagined. Your original question as asked, could not be answered in any cut and dried way.

DoF, and how it affects focus, is likely the least understood fundamental photography concept among amateur photographers.

KmH · Apr 5, 2012

DiskoJoe said:
Its not really a complicated question but people here can go overboard sometime. See here they are basically on the same plane, side by side. So you should be able to get both in focus pretty equally. This is a good way to go for family portraiture. Now if you had them staggered this would be a different story. That is when you would want to consider which to focus on or change your aperture to a longer depth of field.

Here read this tutorial. I found it to be very useful and easy to understand. Zeltsman really knew what he was doing.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/articles-interest/268210-guide-classic-portraiture.html

When I do portraits of couples I like to have them side by side. Then you just focus on the face and since they are both on the same plane both faces would be in focus.

Like this.......

Unfortunately side by side, and shoulders square to the camera, is a weak pose.

DiskoJoe · Apr 5, 2012

KmH said:
In that shot, for all intents and purposes, the 3 eyes that can be seen are the same distance from the camera. Hence it wouldn't matter which eye you focused on because all of the eyes are in the plane of sharpest focus.

You may be discovering that doing photography well is a lot more complicated than you imagined. Your original question as asked, could not be answered in any cut and dried way.

DoF, and how it affects focus, is likely the least understood fundamental photography concept among amateur photographers.

I think she just asked the question in a bad way. She's a beginner and needed a simple beginner answer and not to be bombarded with more technical information then she knows how to understand. You guys dont realize how much you may be scaring the piss out of poor beginners.

DiskoJoe · Apr 5, 2012

KmH said:
DiskoJoe said:

Its not really a complicated question but people here can go overboard sometime. See here they are basically on the same plane, side by side. So you should be able to get both in focus pretty equally. This is a good way to go for family portraiture. Now if you had them staggered this would be a different story. That is when you would want to consider which to focus on or change your aperture to a longer depth of field.

Here read this tutorial. I found it to be very useful and easy to understand. Zeltsman really knew what he was doing.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/articles-interest/268210-guide-classic-portraiture.html

When I do portraits of couples I like to have them side by side. Then you just focus on the face and since they are both on the same plane both faces would be in focus.

Like this.......

Click to expand...

Unfortunately side by side, and shoulders square to the camera, is a weak pose.