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Question from Meghan: “I was wondering if anyone else shoots with a 50mm f1.4??? It’s my lens of choice but I’m having a hard time getting clear images when I shoot more than one face. (A family for example). I use auto focus but manual focus selection. What are your tips and tricks to get great bokeh but keep all those faces in focus???”
Jamey: Have them all on the same plane, otherwise you can’t shoot wide open
Amanda: If I shoot family I aways shoot at at least 4.0
Elisha: I do…I was having a hard time as well but I just had to bump it up to f5.6 and focus in the middle.
April: Use a higher f-stop and place your focus point on the person in the back furthest from you.
Kendra: the trick with aperture is f1 = 1 person. f4 = 4 people. This will pretty much make sure all of them are in focus.
Alaynna: shoot on appeture priority and choose 5.6 or higher
Alaynna: for Bokeh, shoot like i said above and move them further away from the background that you’d like “blurry”
Cara: Yup, I usually shoot at 4.0-5.6 or so with small families and higher with larger families. If you place the family relatively close to you (normal shooting distance) but very far from the background (30-40 feet or more from a treeline or whatever the background is) you should still get a nice blurry background
Nicole: Unfortunately it is hard to get nice bokeh with muliple faces because you have to increase your aperture to get everything in focus it will also get a lot of stuff in the background in focus as well. The only way that you can get somewhat of a bokeh is either by having the subjects stand far away from the background or you can photoshop a bokeh background in. If you look at family portraits you will notice that they never have the bokeh that an individual portrait can have.
Mollie: You need to make sure your depth of field is deep enough. Like Alaynna said, 5.6 or higher. But if you do want the blurry background in a shot with multiple subject, make sure there is enough physical space between the subjects and the background, and also makes sure they’re all relatively the same distant to the camera.
Tom: you might consider using the Brenizer Method, it takes some practice, but you can get some uncommon results with it
Doug: I worked for a wedding studio for 5 years. We were required to shoot f/8 always, unless impossible.
Tara: I would not neccesarily agree with aperature being the problem here…I am on my 3rd canon 50mm 1.4 and the focus issues with it are horrendous…im switching to the sigma 50mm because heard great things….so if you’re talking more about focus rather just aperature, it very well could be the lens! trust me, im on my 3rd and was holding out for some luck but this lens works smooth some times and at other times, its horrible! and i do have the mark2 which has problems focusing sometimes but when i put on my 85mm 1.8 its fine so i know its the lens. so your best bet, test it out…take your kids or family out and test out tht lens with another …see if it is the lens or maybe work on your posing and like others said, put the family closer together and bump up the aperature, you don’t want to shoot at 1.8 for a family
Danielle: You can also use a DOF calculator.
Christine: Meghan, thank you for asking this! I had the same question, as I struggle to get all faces in focus when doing group shots. I use a canon on auto focus with multiple points, but I find that the camera does not select all faces as the focal points. I will practice with the tips posted here. Thanks everyone!!
Colleen: Are you shooting at 1.4? For multiple people, I don’t think you’ll be happy at 1.4. Remember, it is a very shallow depth of field and unless everyone is exactly on the same focal plane….you won’t hit it. Depending upon if they are next to each other or in rows, I would suggest a minimum of F4…..
Katie: Great question as I am having the same problem too, thanks for all the advice everyone
Ashley: This family was shot with a 50 1.4, but it was at f/2.5. I was about 5 feet in front of them, and they were about 30 feet in front of the background.
I hardly ever shoot wide open anymore (although, when I first started, I shot everything wide open always). There’s a sweet spot on every lens, and I find it to be about a full stop above it’s max aperture (so about 3 clicks if that’s easier to understand). 1.4 is so shallow that you often can’t even get one face to be in focus if you’re too close.
I highly recommend watching this video to learn about how distance, lens choice, and aperture affects your depth of field. It’s a great visual!
Sharon: Great post. I’ve got the 50mm 1.4 and used to have problems with focus when it’s more than one person. These are terrific tips from likers.
Andrea: You HAVE to change the aperture. It won’t be sharp unless otherwise. Try and get everyone in the exact same line and good luck cause the slightest movement will affect the shot. I agree F4 or so will be best
Nicole: Where or what person do you focus on! It seems I hit an miss with focus on my family shoots. I use the rule if there is 1 person = f1 if there are 5 people = f5 and so on, but it still seems that not everyone will be in focus or somewhat grainy. I shoot with 50mm 1.2 and the 24-105
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