The question the books and classes never satisfactorily answer.
“Do you focus on the FRONT row, or the BACK row.”
It’s IMPORTANT…when you test stuff, to use a family that doesn’t MOVE. This setup replicates a family where the two kids are two feet in front of the two parents.
Because all of our cameras come with MULTIPLE FOCUS POINTS as the default setting, as we learn photography, we’re often tricked into thinking that our cameras can focus on more than one thing at a time. They can’t…..unless those things are the SAME DISTANCE from the camera.
When a camera lens is in focus, it’s focusing on a specific DISTANCE. It’s just using the “thing” as a way to SET THAT DISTANCE. It can’t focus on two different distances.
All portrait photographers run into this problem…..some of us DAILY.
When you have two or more rows of people (or things) what do you focus on?
This gets more challenging when we want our background to be SOFFFFFT, because then we’re using a wide aperture with a shallow depth of field.
So if we focus on the FRONT row, the eyes in the back row are soft.
If we focus on the BACK row, the eyes in the front row are soft.
One solution is to use a narrower aperture, and get more of the scene in focus……but interestingly, almost NO ONE EVER TESTS to see what aperture is best. Everyone just GUESSES.
When I shoot a family of four, in two rows, with my 135mm (on a full frame), full length…..I know….because I TEST IT…..that I can do a decent job of getting both rows sharp with f4. DEFINITELY with f5.6.
But working professional photographers will tell you all sorts of UNtested things…..f8 very commonly, regardless of lens. Some will say ridiculous things like f11 which is completely
un-necessary. Most will simply throw out a number.
We don’t have to work that way, we can TEST IT.
But let’s roll back up to our REAL goal, which is using a WIDER aperture for a SOFTER background. We’ll work with f2.2
Which row to focus on?
Well here’s that thing that you never hear anyone else teaching….I call it FOCUS LEANING.
I focus on the FRONT ROW…..once I have my focus locked (af-s, not af-c) I lean part of the distance to the BACK ROW, and take my shot. Now instead of using the distance to the front OR the distance to the back, I SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE and focus on a plane a third of the way between them, which allows me to get the eyes in both rows ACCEPTABLY SHARP, with a WIDER APERTURE.
Two other things you can do….
If you’re FAST…you can quickly shoot two or more shots at different focus distances, and focus STACK them.
Or, if you don’t mind a little extra work, you can focus once on the front row and once on the back and SWAP FACES in post 😉