Blurry pictures

Anitakolstad

I have a Nikon D5500, which I am learning how to use. I have the two lenses that came with it and I bought a 35mm prime lens. When I was taking our family photo the front row was clear but the back row was fuzzy. What am I doing wrong?

relliot499

If it's the f/1.8 G lens it sounds like your aperture was too wide open, meaning f/1.8. With the aperture wide open, you'll blur the background. Try raising the aperture to f/5.6 or f/8.

Anitakolstad

Ok, thank you.

bruto

@relliot499 has it. Once upon a time, depth of field charts were present on most lenses, making such things easier to figure out.

Here's an on line resource, into which you can plug your focal length and aperture to see what the depth of field will be. As you can see, when the lens is wide open, it's quite shallow. Ideal for portraits where you want the background blurred, but not so great for group shots.

(see here)