Having some Manual Focus Issues

sirgroot

Hello guys! I am currently using the AF-S NIKKOR 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6GII lense. I have been doing some photography with some of my collectibles and keep running into a focus issue.

I have been getting accustomed to Manual Focus due to the control it presents, but there seems to be times when no matter how slightly I move the lense, I can't seem to get enough of the shot in focus. I will increase the aperture (make the number bigger) to have more things in focus, but sometimes I feel that something isn't adding up..

http://imgur.com/JwTAezH
For example, I was trying to work this out last night and as you can see the bottom left, yellow haired character does not have his face in focus, but the other characters do. Heck even the large character to the left is more in focus than the yellow character's face. I could not for the life of me find the sweet spot and this has happend in other occasions where just a single rather small area of the shot just won't focus well enough. Why would all characters in the center of the pic be in focus except the face of the yellow haired character? Maybe if only one character's face was in focus, then adjusting the aperture would be the simple solution, but this seems odd to me.

What could be the source of this issue? Am I missing something basic? I do take my shots looking through the eyehole, is that not advised in these scenarios? Auto Focus does not seem to help when I'm trying to get all of these characters in proper focus at such a close proximity.

Moose

@sirgroot What you are encountering is called the Minimum Focus Distance. Each lens has a different MFD. If you get inside the MFD, you won't be able to focus both manually or with AF enabled. If you like to take macro (close-up) photos, I'd recommend looking at the Nikon 40mm f/2.8 which would allow you to take a picture of the scene you linked to and get everything in focus. All the best!