Focusing all in the shot

spalais

Hi there, I am super new to DSLRs. I have a Nikon D3200 and I was wondering how I can get it to get everything in focus. For instance, I was at a baseball game trying to take a photo of my friend in front of the scoreboard (way across the stadium) and I could only get him in focus. It looked great, but I needed both to be in focus. If I moved to another auto setting, it would want to focus only the scoreboard. How might I get it to focus both the foreground AND the background? I'm heading to Yosemite next month and want to make sure I know how to take photos of my family in front of landscapes. Thanks!

ohyeahar

Check out the last 3 links here which talks about depth of field.
http://forums.cameratips.com/discussion/2177/simple-explanations-with-examples-of-basic-photography-knowledge

To get everything in focus, you need a wide depth of field. To maximize depth of field, you'll need to use a small aperture, short focal length, and increase distance between you and the subject.

bruto

Nothing to add really to above except that with the D3200's very high pixel count it may be possible for snapshots to move back from the subject, and/or use a wider angle to gain depth of field, and then crop the picture afterwards. If the scene is well focused to start with, crops can still be very sharp, and more than sharp enough for small prints.

With the Dx size sensor, diffraction can set in at very small apertures. Depending on circumstances, the tradeoff of sharpness to diffraction may offset the gain in depth of field. You must experiment a little with apertures smaller than about f/11, to see what compromises are most satisfactory.