[brightseal]

Why is the face in focus but not the hands and background? Disregard the soft filter

Thanks in advance.

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[tduell]

You've answered your own question with the subject line.
It's hard to guess what the DOF will be without knowing how far the subject is from the lens, but guessing the subject is 2m away, the DOF is only about 0.75m.
If the subject is only 1m away, then the DOF is only 0.18m.
Go online and check with DOF calculator, it will tell you.

Cheers,
Terry

[Des]

Why is the face in focus but not the hands and background?

Because you were too close to the subject to get sufficient DOF to get both in acceptable focus at f5.6. APS-C 35mm f5.6 DOF: 2m from subject 0.79m (ie about 0.4m in front and the same behind the point of focus), 3m from subject DOF 1.87m (ie 0.9m approx in front of the focus point). A Flexible Depth of Field Calculator

[BWG]

Why is the face in focus but not the hands and background? Disregard the soft filter

Thanks in advance.

Cambridge in Colour - Photography Tutorials & Learning Community
When I was a new photographer and trying to figure this stuff out this website was absolutely invaluable.

[biz-engineer]

Why is the face in focus but not the hands and background?

That's because the lens was focused on the face. Please give me a like

[photogem]

Spotmetering Which you often use (such as HERE) is another factor!
Mistake: Single Point AF!

[ehrwien]

Spotmetering is another factor!

Would you mind explaining to me what influence the metering mode has on depth of field?

[normhead]

Next time use your phone, or a small sensor camera.

As sensor size decreases DoF increases for the same ƒ/stop.

My Lumix ZS100 1 inch sensor shot wide. The first person is maybe10 feet away.

Another trick, use a UWA lens. a lens like the 21 ltd.or DA* 11-18 would have given you a better shot. My Lumix shot was taken at 9mm. The shorter the focal length, the wider the DoF.

[photogem]

Would you mind explaining to me what influence the metering mode has on depth of field?

Good and important question: I mixed it up with single point AF!

Of course spot-metering has no influence on DOF!

[mikesbike]

A DOF calculator would be of value to you. For this shot at such a close range, you'd need to stop down your lens way more to sharpen up the background and foreground. You'd then lose shutter speed, so you'd need to increase ISO to compensate to get the same exposure. If using a wider angle lens, you'd need to get closer yet to get the same framing size of your subject, while the wider angle would include more in your background. It would also change perspective, elongating the subject's features, limbs, etc. front-to-back, as well as making distant objects appear more distant.

[photogem]

An interesting video comparing wide-angle with short-tele can be seen here:

You Tube

You Tube

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

Why is the face in focus but not the hands and background? Disregard the soft filter

Thanks in advance.

Limited DOF, you will have to stop down the lens to increase your DOF, and as other have stated you will have to decrease your shutter speed or increase your iso to compensate for those changes, If you decide to use a wider lens and and frame your subject the same in the field of view, your DOF will remain the same for the same ƒ-stop no matter the focal length you use. The only time that you would gain more DOF by changing your focal length is if you are going to use the wider lens while shooting the same distance this will intern decreasing the size of your subject in your field of view Hope this helps

[normhead]

Limited DOF, you will have to stop down the lens to increase your DOF, and as other have stated you will have to decrease your shutter speed or increase your iso to compensate for those changes, If you decide to use a wider lens and and frame your subject the same in the field of view, your DOF will remain the same for the same ƒ-stop no matter the focal length you use. The only time that you would gain more DOF by changing your focal length is if you are going to use the wider lens while shooting the same distance this will intern decreasing the size of your subject in your field of view Hope this helps

Shooting from the same position and with a wider lens and cropping would be the practical way of achieving this.

[pschlute]

Shooting from the same position and with a wider lens and cropping would be the practical way of achieving this.

Except that the more you crop an image, the more you increase the "circles of confusion", and the less likely the image will have acceptable focus. Take your image in post #8. Crop the back three subjects so they are the same size as the front three and see if they are in acceptable focus

There are really no short cuts to stopping down the lens if you want a wide DOF

[normhead]

Except that the more you crop an image, the more you increase the "circles of confusion", and the less likely the image will have acceptable focus. Take your image in post #8. Crop the back three subjects so they are the same size as the front three and see if they are in acceptable focus

There are really no short cuts to stopping down the lens if you want a wide DOF

Smaller sensor with denser pixels and shorter lens does it every time.

Too funny, I shot that image the way I did because I was tired of the typical "Straight line parallel to the lens method fo shooting group portraits. I wanted something different. So, you're asking me to do something I specifically chose not to do, to prove your point.
Because I've worked on the images at full size furthest away images I know they are slightly soft and slightly out of focus. A calculation made consciously to achieve a compositional goal. But at that size in acceptable focus. So I achieved my goal.

I'm not sure if you read my post because I pointed out in that post that stopping down would have reduced my shutter speed so much that I would have had to ask the people to consciously try and stand still. That's not a good strategy for successful photography.

If your theory about expanding circles of confusion were correct, then the whole image would be soft.
Essentially what I've done is shot a 9mm and enlarged the circles of confusion recorded on the small sensor and yet, there Is no image degradation caused by enlarged circles of confusion.

I will believe this might be possible when I see an example. In my experience circles of confusion are a non factor in photographic enlargement. I have seen instances where the subject was slightly out of focus, like the ones in that image, and having the lack of sharpness enlarged to visible levels. But DoF is normalized for 8x10 images, so it should the same enlargement at any size of sensor for a given image. I have not seen is a circle of confusion enlarged, where it wasn't the softness used is invisible in one image, and visible when enlarged.

If enlarged circles of confusion is a thing, how is my Lumix ZS100 able to beat my K-5 and almost equal my K-3 in resolution? Why do those enlarged circles of confusion not degrade the small sensor image? After all, the APS-c sensors are 4 times the size. The circles of confusion on the small sensor image should be 4 times the size. And yet there is no visible difference. The issue being, if you are in sharp focus, the circles of confusion are so small, 4 times the size still isn't an issue. You need to get well beyond acceptable focus before enlarging your circles of confusion becomes an issue. That's part of why it's called acceptable focus. It's all based on the size of the circles of confusion. The whole idea of depth of field is defined by acceptable focus. SO DoF already incorporates the circles of confusion in the way it's calculated. If you get more depth of field from a wider lens, the enlargement of circles of confusion is already compensated for. You don't get to factor it in a second time to make a point.