Working on my focus. Have a few questions.

khaymond · Oct 23, 2011

When shooting a family portrait with my subjects at different depths....

My focus mode is at AF-S (because there are children)...Right?
My area mode is at Single point? or Dynamic?
My metering is at matrix? center weighted? or spot?

I'm using Nikkor 50mm 1.4 lens

Thanks,
Kristie

khaymond · Oct 23, 2011

One more question, I know that i should focus on one eye and not between the eyes, but what about when there is more than one subject in the frame?

I know I'm dumb. I just want to learn the right way and there are so many opinions out there! Thanks in advance

MLeeK · Oct 23, 2011

Focus and metering are totally separate.
Focus tips:
Make sure you are using an adequate shutter speed. If your subjects are alive and sitting still to pose no slower than 1/125. If they are moving no slower than 1/250. If they are running no slower than 1/500
AF-s is a preference. If the children are moving around and you are shooting in a journalistic style then I would say continuous. Otherwise I like that single shot for portraits.
Aperture adequate to match your skill and/or equal to or greater than the number of people in the image.
Where to focus: Usually you would focus on the inside of the eye of the person closest to you unless they are lined up several rows deep, then you need to compensate.
Focus falls 1/3 in front of the focus point and 2/3 behind it.

use one single focus point and toggle it so that it falls where YOU want it. Never use all of your focus points. It allows the camera to make a decision that you should be making.

Metering is a completely different ball game than focus. Your metering mode depends on YOU and your knowledge and style.
Matrix metering takes every pixel into consideration and tries to average it out to middle gray.
Center weighted takes every pixel into consideration and then makes the center ones much more important.
Spot metering meters only what is on your center spot and tries to make it middle gray.
Your camera sees in terms of black and white, not what you are seeing. It knows nothing other than it is supposed to make that grayscale image equal out to middle or 18% gray. It doesn't know that you may be shooting on a black backdrop or on a bright beach. It doesn't care if you have a bright sun that you have to compensate for, it's just trying to make your meter read 0 which is mmiddle gray. If you have a bright sun it will use all that bright and think you need to reduce the exposure-probably a lot. If it sees all of a black backdrop it will try to make it middle gray.
Skin is not middle gray. It's lighter.
Grass is usually roughly middle gray or a bit lighter in full sunlight.
If you look at your scene and you can picture what it would look like in black and white... Then envision what you want to be that middle gray tone... Once you know what you want as that middle gray you can spot meter on it and you (ideally) will have great exposure.