Faces - help please! by nicolaeastwood

Faces - help please!

My parents won't thank me for this....but....I hope they won't mind, I need their faces to ask you all for help!

My get-pushed partner for this week challenged to take some photos of faces. One face I can do, but when it came to two or more like this, in every shot one face was ever so slightly out of focus. Have set multiple points of focus, and tried using the A-Dep setting (have Canon 450D)

Any tips gratefully received, please?!
Boo
try a different angle? No idea but wanted to reply. lol
February 9th, 2013  
@huvesaker thanks....I crawled all round the floor trying to hide light switches and doorhandles......at one point my Dad had two noses - one turned out to be the corner of a square light shade behind him.
February 9th, 2013  
as i understand it you need a much smaller aperture to increase your depth of field.
February 9th, 2013  
@kali66 .... ah yes, that's somewhere close to page one of the photography course isn't it? I keep forgetting the simplest stuff!
February 9th, 2013  
And distance from subject to camera you look very close so f22 wouldnt pull all into sharp focus try further away and crop!
February 9th, 2013  
I love taking portraits/the blurry background look. When there is more than one person I find you need to have a smaller aperture and it also helps when both faces are on the same focusing plane. Alternatively, I focus on the person closest to the camera and again, adjust aperture. Hope that makes sense! :)
February 9th, 2013  
@danitech @paul2782 thank you....yes I think I was too close, that may have been the problem. Will harass them again tomorrow perhaps!
February 9th, 2013  
As others have mentioned, a smaller aperture is going to help but then you start moving into longer shutter speeds so a tripod might be useful. Unless you bump up your ISO then you start getting noise issues... It never ends does it?
February 9th, 2013  
@steampowered that's exactly right! They thought I was totally incompetent anyway as I'd left it on self timer and couldn't work out why it wasn't taking a picture, before looking at the lens just as the flash went off and blinding myself comedy style....hilarious!
February 9th, 2013  
too funny Nicola, best of luck for next time now you are armed with all these tips :)
February 9th, 2013  
@paul2782 is right, you will never get both in focus with this composition; they need to be more on the same plane. You could try using a wide angle lens and cropping.

On the plus side, I love this picture. Your parents have so such kind faces.
February 10th, 2013  
I would raise the aperture up a bit......certainly more than f/5.6
February 10th, 2013  
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