I am a beginner of photography trying to take travel photos with a subject and scenery in the background. I have a rebel g with ef28-135mm. I am trying to get maximum depth of field with 3 point autofocusing. I have a very difficult time getting a sharp focus on my subject 10 ft away and and the background far away, even in a very sunny day when I am using f16. I want to avoid using wide focal length like 28mm because my subject become to small and get distorted. I want a portrait like picture about 2/3 of my subject and the background to be vey sharp. There is a depth of field mode but when I want to use fill flash to eliminate shadows it become a P mode and I can't use partial metering.

Can anyone give me a suggestion how to solve me problem? All I am getting is a sharp subject but a blurred background.

Any answer is much appreciated. Thanks

-- tony (tonyli@sprint.ca), June 08, 2000

Answers

With the Rebel you will probably have to set it on Manual exposure & Manual focusing to make this work right, since the depth mode is tied to the AF sensors & poping up the flash disables depth mode.

Set the aperture to f:16 and the shutter to whatever the meter tells you to set it at. Then, with your zoom set at 100mm, set the focus to 18' (hyperfocal distance for 100mm @ f:16). Everything from 9' to infinity should be in focus. If you set your lens to 135mm you will have to set the focus at 24' and then eveything from 12' to infinity will be sharp.

You can pop up the flash and providing the close subject is filling the center of the picture, fill flash should kick in. If the subject is not in the center you will have to use an external flash that lets you set it manually.

-- Jim Strutz (jimstrutz@juno.com), June 08, 2000.

Get the aperature you need in DOF mode, then switch over to aperature priority mode and use that aperature. Flash will work fine. Be careful in low light situtations as the shutter speed might get too low.

-- Steven Fisher (srf@srf.com), June 09, 2000.