group shot apertures

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joescrivens

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Was discussing this recently, I think some people have a misconception that the more people in a group the higher your aperture needs to be in order to achieve sharp focus across the whole group.

In fact, if they are all on the same plane then your aperture can remain the same no matter how many there are in a particular group. It's only when the people in the group are standing in front of or behind the previous members of said group that you need to start increasing your depth of field.

In fact here we have 13 people, but because they are all on the same plane i was able to shoot this at f/2 at 85mm


groupShot by MrJoeBoy, on Flickr

here we have less people, but in 2 rows, same focal length and I had to increase the f stop to 2.8


group by MrJoeBoy, on Flickr

when you are shooting with bodies that can't handle high noise levels and don't have flash, it's paramount to ensure you can get as much light as possible to your sensor to obtain a high enough shutter speed to get the shot. So there is no need to use f/8 when you can use f/4 for example.

Also, pay attention to your focal length. Many large group shots are taken at around 35mm effective focal length and even at low apertures the focal length combined with the subject distance can produce a very large DOF.
 
joescrivens said:
Was discussing this recently, I think some people have a misconception that the more people in a group the higher your aperture needs to be in order to achieve sharp focus across the whole group.

In fact, if they are all on the same plane then your aperture can remain the same no matter how many there are in a particular group. It's only when the people in the group are standing in front of or behind the previous members of said group that you need to start increasing your depth of field.

In fact here we have 13 people, but because they are all on the same plane i was able to shoot this at f/2 at 85mm


groupShot by MrJoeBoy, on Flickr

here we have less people, but in 2 rows, same focal length and I had to increase the f stop to 2.8


group by MrJoeBoy, on Flickr

when you are shooting with bodies that can't handle high noise levels and don't have flash, it's paramount to ensure you can get as much light as possible to your sensor to obtain a high enough shutter speed to get the shot. So there is no need to use f/8 when you can use f/4 for example.

Also, pay attention to your focal length. Many large group shots are taken at around 35mm effective focal length and even at low apertures the focal length combined with the subject distance can produce a very large DOF.
Click to expand...


Great post :thumbs:
 
My experience is that people seem to get it more with other photography, it's with groups I see the most misconception coming through
 
It's worth reminding readers at the same time that the plane of focus is flat*. It does not curve.



Red and Blue are in the same plane of focus (parellel to the sensor/film plane) but are different distances from the camera.

Yellow is not in the same plane of focus as Red, but is the same distance from the camera.

It sounds obvious to those that understand it, but it's not always obvious to someone coming at it for the first time.


*yes, all planes are flat.. but school geometry lessons are a long time ago for some people, and others claim not to have been awake when this was mentioned.. :lol:
 
Not bad.. but does the principal apply to large groups? Should do. Don't see why not....

We tend when 3 lines or more nothing under F8 - F11 for large groups.

file.php


Shame I can not make this bigger. Its off another link that would only let litte pix upload.
 
daryl, yeah there's no reason why not. How far away from the camera are they? at a guess I'd say they must be at least 5m away if not more.

at 35mm f/9 and a minimum of 5m away you have enough dof for a landscape as it's infinite behind the subject. You probably could have gone down much lower in the aperture and had enough DOF to get them all in focus.

35mm at 5.6 from 5m gives you a total dof of 13.1m for example which would have allowed your shutter to be 1/160 at the same exposure. But without seeing the pic closer up it's hard to say if that would have made any difference to the image 1/60 may have been totally fine anyway
 
Someone posted a picture here a while back at f/1.4. It was a group of 4 or 5 people spread accross the frame walking through a wood.
All were in perfect focus, and a lot of people didnt believe it was at f/1.4.

Simple really when you think about it.
 
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