The Two Subject FOCUS Rule
I
f the only subject in a photograph
isn’t in focus, the picture is a failure.
Similarly, if there are two subjects in
a picture, and only one of them is sharp, I con-
sider that a failure as well.
The picture below of green bee eaters in Sri
Lanka is a perfect example. The small birds
were perched so close together that I thought
-- even with a 450mm focal length (a 100-
400mm telephoto plus a 1.4x teleconverter) --
an f/8 lens aperture would be enough to cap-
ture both of the birds in focus. I was wrong.
The bird on the left is obviously not sharp, and
that ruins an otherwise good shot.
I know there are photographers, both profes-
sional and amateur, that disagree with this
position, and that’s fine. But when one of two
subjects isn’t sharp, I find that to be visually
annoying, terribly distracting, and less than
ideal.
I photographed the black-tailed deer fawns
on the next page with a telephoto lens. I was
shooting with a large lens aperture of f/5.6, and
unless the two deer were precisely equidistant
to the camera, one of them wouldn’t be sharp.
So, I waited until that occurred and then took
the picture. Being aware of this issue enables
you to take the ideal image.