I have Pentax K2000. Need to take pictures of 4 people at a time. What's the best setting to use? I want to make sure everyone's face is in focus. Any help would be appreciated!

[patrick9]

There are a lot of variables to consider. Like which lens ,distance to them from the camera, How they are positioned , lighting . Also how much background you want in focus as well. without knowing the answers to the a for mentioned questions it is hard to give a more precise answer. That said I would probably try around F 8, f 11 or 16. Those usually work well for me when the family has gotten together and I am just shooting to capture the moment Everything is in focus within the room at those settings. That is using one of my 35-80 mm lenses and having plenty of light..

The closer you are to the subject and smaller number f stop the less area will be in focus. The farther away and larger the f stop number the more area will be in focus. so if you are very close the larger the f stop number needs to be to get all in focus as well as the more distance you have from the subject the smaller the number can be. Also keep in mind that the smaller the number the slower the shutter speed needs to be to not under expose.

[psychdoc]

4 people is not a lot - unless you are planning to take a picture with them standing one behind the other or in poor lighting! You should be able to take decent pics at apertures between f8-f16 with most any common lens.

Option 1:
-Place in P mode
-Half press the shutter and see if the Av value that you are seeing is at least 8 or higher.
-Check the shutter speed to see if it is at least 1/100 or faster:
-If so, simply shoot.

Option 2:
-Aperture priority- set to f8,
-ISO 100,
-look at what shutter speed you are getting:

From your question you sound like you are new to photography, so to keep things simpe, if the shutter speed is slower than 1/100, you may get camera shake and blurry pic.
-So will need to change the ISO,
-try ISO 200 or ISO 400 max on the K2000 camera. If the shutter speed is still slow you need to shoot where there is more light or use a tripod.

Thank you so much for your help! I AM new to digital picture taking. I've been asked to take some pictures of the people I work with because I happened to take some pretty nice "nature" pictures. I told them I'd try it but no guarantees!
Thanks again!