Newbie with a Prime Lens

[Firefly71]

Ok I recently purchased a 35mm 1.8 for my D5200. I am shooting here and there trying to get good shots. When I have 1 person or object in the photo it looks great. However when I have 2 people that I want in focus I have 1 in focus and 1 out of focus. I am shooting in Apeture mode at 1.8. When I have 2 subjects do I need to change my focus mode?

Thanks,
Firefly

 

[Nubster]

Are the people on the same plane? f/1.8 is a very shallow depth of field. Try stopping down the lens some and try again. Also, are these static models or people that are moving around?

I don't know your experience level so I hope I'm not insulting you here...but in case you don't know, the smaller the aperture number, the wider open the lens is allowing more light in for a fast shutter speed but you get a shallow depth of field. Closing down the aperture (bigger number) will increase the DOF but result in slower shutter speeds for a given lighting situation. So as you are finding out...f/1.8 is great for a single person or object but not so great for multiple subjects....unless you can get them all within that razor thin area of focus.

If you already knew this...just tell me to shut up...lol

 

[Firefly71]

I appreciate your comments. I was trying to shoot at 1.8 in a social gathering with people at different lengths away from me. I was the thinking the open Apeture would bring in more light. But I could only get one person in focus. I thought there might be a trick with focusing that I didn't know about.

 

[Nubster]

No...you were right with the better light but the DOF just won't allow for you to get sharp focus on subjects at differing distances. In such a case you'd need to use a smaller aperture and bump up the ISO to get a faster shutter speed.

Here's a picture I took several years ago...it's not great but it really shows how shallow some of these lenses can shoot. Notice in front of the fly's feet on the surface...you'll see that really narrow strip of in focus area. That's at f/2.8 so image that f/1.8 is even shallower....

 

[Stradawhovious]

With the nifty fifty 1.8 is going to be really soft even with the parts that fall within the razor thin DOF. I almost NEVER shoot the 50 mm 1.8 wide open due to this fact.

Try stopping up a bit to about f/5.6. This will offer very sharp focus with a much deeper DOF. You shouldn't have a problem getting multiple people in focus as long as they are pretty close to being on the same plane. If you are having exposure issues at that aperture adjust the ISO and/or shutter speed.

This isn't to say that you can't shoot wider, it's just to say that f/5.6 is within the "sweet spot" of this lens, and will still give you a decent background blur in most cases. Like with any new piece of equipment though, test the ever living hell out of it before putting it to task. It will let you know what it's capable of.

 

[Firefly71]

Wow what a cool shot! I will keep experimenting.....maybe I'll get good at this someday.

 

[Nubster]

That's the awesome thing about digital photography and the internet....you can shoot endlessly for essentially free (after buying the camera setup that is) learning all the while. Make mistakes...delete and start over. Post up pics on sites like this and ask for critiques. Read articles and sites on how to shoot. Youtube is fantastic. There's a lot of great books available too. I personally like stuff by Bryan Peterson. It's a fantastic hobby for sure. I've been shooting a few years but I'm still very much a newb and know very little but I love doing it.

 

[shaylou]

You need to study depth of field to understand. Here is a link that has a ton of info in it about everything photography. I want to mention how I learned how it worked when I first started out. I put my camera on a tripod and set up 4 or 5 subjects on a table in front of it. I placed the subjects a few inches apart (deeper). I then hooked up my laptop (tether) to the camera so that I would have a very clear view of what was going on. I took test shots focusing on each subject at a wide open aperture. As i shot I closed down the aperture to see how the depth of field changed. Once I had that figured out I started to change the focal distance to see how that changed the depth of field. Watching this all unfold on the laptop screen really helped me understand how depth of field works. I would read up on it first before trying the experiment. It really worked for me back then and I would recommend it to anyone that is having a problem understanding aperture. here is the link Cambridge in Colour - Photography Tutorials & Learning Community

Good luck.

 

[dannylightning]

Even at f/1.8 you can usually get more stuff in focus if your are farther away from what you are shooting, you can always crop the photo if needed. when you are close to something that you are focused on you will often get a out of focus or blurry background, so take some test shots at f/1.8 if you are in low light and try different distanced from the subject, if you cant get what you want in focus than change the aperture and any other settings needed to get a proper exposure.

both of these pics were at f/1.8 you can see the first one has allot more in focus because i was farther away, the second on where i was close to the green car you will notice there is allot more out of focus.