hey guys welcome all welcome back thanks so much for joining me today
today we're going to discuss how to get multiple subjects in focus
so like i've just said we're going to get multiple subjects in focus today we are going to be going
out and shooting so don't have a panic but there's just some theory things that i want
to cover off before we go outside so we're going to illustrate that in here we're going to discuss
today specifically getting multiple subjects in focus in the same image the exact same photograph
so we're not talking about compositing although that would be plan b if plan a does not work so
we're going to discuss all the important parts to getting multiple subjects in focus and this is
really useful for when you're photographing animals with their owners when you're
photographing multiple animals when you're photographing in group situations
all those kind of things it comes down to this so we're gonna discuss that starting
now by the way if you haven't already please do press the subscribe button and hit the bell icon
i haven't asked you to do that in a little while so i would really appreciate it if you haven't
already you definitely need to understand the exposure triangle because we're going to be
discussing something specifically relating to aperture and you're going to need to know how
to compensate for that everywhere else you guys that know me you know i like shooting wide open
or close to wide open to get all of that blurry background-ness in the image you can still do that
and get multiple dogs in the shot and this is what i kind of want to discuss so for the
purposes of today's video we're going to be using a 70 to 200 2.8 sony gm lens with the sony a7R III
so we are going to be using that equipment but it doesn't really matter you can kind of use
whatever you want to use but there is a difference in terms of the focal length and how much of the
image is in focus which we've discussed already in the how to get blurry backgrounds video
so i want to discuss with you guys like obviously i'm hoping that you understand the principles
of aperture in terms of the f number the bigger the f number is the more of the image is in focus
that is true so you can logically use your brain to go okay i'll just increase my f number to
get everything in focus and yes that will help you out but you do also need to understand the
the implications of relative distances in that as well i'm keeping this video as short as possible
because i don't think it needs to be ridiculously long it's a relatively straightforward thing so
i'm illustrate the next part with some props i've got two candles here because i just think you know
it's easy to explain so just stick with me please stick with me this is gonna enrich your life i
promise so what we've got is two candles right if we put those two candles next to each other
slap bang straighten the line like so we only need to focus on one of them to achieve a good
overall focus on the image right what if those two are staggered apart so let's
put them i don't know there what would you do then because now we've got an issue because they're on
different focal planes if you focus on the one in front then you will end up having the focus
on that subject that candle and a not on the back one so the first thing to note about this is try
and get your subject as close physically possible to being on the same line right
so if we've got our subjects on the same line it's okay now one thing that's important to note
about the depth of field is that it actually works just like most things in photography in thirds so
if you focused on something let's say we focused on the front of this subject here if we focused on
here then what that does for us basically is it gives us a third of the depth of field in front
and two thirds of the depth of field behind we don't really care about the depth of field
going on in front there and it's not going to be potentially super sharp but the knowledge that we
know about the depth of field behind does come in handy so let's say for example that our subjects
are sat reasonably close together they've done a good job we've been positioned nicely
but we do definitely have one that is in front of the other one so one is slightly in front and
that's as much as it needs to be to drop the other one completely out of focus at 2.8 for example
when you're shooting in a situation so what you do is you focus on the front subject the subject that
is most at the front focus on them first and if you focus on them you've got your two-thirds of
the depth of field falling behind but what is your aperture what is the depth of field well
we know from previous videos that the depth of field is manipulated by how close you are the
camera is to the subject so the further the subject is away from the camera lens
the larger the depth of field that's going to come across there so using that knowledge we can kind
of help ourselves out a little bit in terms of how where were going to shoot these things now
another thing that does come into consideration here is definitely going to be your focal length
so a longer focal length like 200mm compresses everything in the scene and that includes the
depth of field so just bare that in mind but don't worry about that too much if you get your subjects
to be nicely lined up reasonably close together in the scene you can then go ahead and focus on
the closest subject eyes remember the eyes and you have got a good chance of throwing that focus back
onto the second subject but there's a handy little trick which can help set your aperture at how many
subjects there are in the scene times two so as a rough guesstimation we've got two subjects here
if we were to go ahead and um shoot them let's say that they're reasonably well lined up there
we could go for f4 and give it a whirl and see what we get there's loads of things that come into
consideration here but that's the basics what if our subjects are staggered a little bit more than
we particularly maybe would have liked we want to go ahead and add another one on again so either f6
in that case or f8 for these two subjects but then how do you keep your blurry backgrounds well that
comes down to your distances so make sure that there is enough distance between your subjects
and the background and make sure that the distance between you and the subject is less than that
distance this is something that you're gonna have to try learn to use your kit but what we've done
is we've gone out and shot using this principle so i'll just drop that clip in here now right so
we've got a much straighter long track this way so b is in front by a little
bit which is fine so we focus on the front dog the front dog is barnacle right sorry
so we can look really quickly at the images taken from that just to kind of show you guys let's go
ahead and zoom into 200 percent here we have focused barnacle bryt baby bryt baby b was
slightly in front of alf in this situation she's mid flick of a head round here but we've got all
of her head in focus and all of his head in a nice sharp focus and that was shot at f 4.5 at nearly
200mm so that gives you kind of like a good range there here we've got a beautiful pose from
alf this is obviously how he feels about being sat next to that dog and we're at f 4.5 and let's see
again so we've got nice sharp focus across the board which even with these examples that we're
showing you just raw files from the two of those two set together loads of loads of those images
are in focus using the f number times two for the subject and using the moving them close together
where possible let's say for example you can't get them to sit close together because they hate each
other or they're just annoying or they can't do it and even leads won't work what do you do then
well in that situation you photograph one there you photograph the other one there you composite
them together or when they're sat side by side you move your focus point whilst they're still
in position from one to the other so you've got sharp image of both of them you put them together
that's how you photograph two subjects or more in a scene and making sure they're in focus in one
shot i hope this was helpful if it is please let me know and let me know what you think
basically about anything else in the comments below i'll see you all again really really soon