Two subjects, two rooms both in focus

[NRandall]

I need to hake a picture of the school principal with a painting also in focus in the background. Its apart of a story.
The painting is up high in a fairly well lit but narrow foyer, and the only way I can get both in the same shot is to place the person in the adjoining room and to shoot up past her through the frame of the door.
The nearest room is less well lit than the foyer. I am thinking maybe HD lighting with a little flash for the foreground but in reality I have no idea how to approach this.

[NRandall]

maybe Active D lighting with a little flash for the foreground but in reality I have no idea how to approach this.

I meant Active D lighting -

[ricktas]

lighting will be your issue. To get everything in focus front to back you need to consider a small aperture f22 etc, and do some research into hyperfocal distance. What you may need to do is set what you focus on, at about half way (front to back) between the two subjects. Using a small aperture to ensure a good depth of field comes with issues related to shutter speed for a good exposure, so lighting would need to be optimal to achieve the result wanted

[NRandall]

Thank you Rick
I'll post my results next week.

[ameerat42]

NR. Does it have to be in two separate rooms? Could you try two separate shots with each subject in focus in turn?
Combine the two shots in PP using layers. Hint: Don't have an OOF principal.

A sketch would be handy to visualise the situation.

[NRandall]

Jodie web 1024.jpg

lighting will be your issue. To get everything in focus front to back you need to consider a small aperture f22 etc, and do some research into hyperfocal distance. What you may need to do is set what you focus on, at about half way (front to back) between the two subjects. Using a small aperture to ensure a good depth of field comes with issues related to shutter speed for a good exposure, so lighting would need to be optimal to achieve the result wanted

Thank you for your detailed response. In the end the whole scene was counter intuitive as I was shooting from a relatively dark space into a backlit foyer. The back light worked for her hair I think
The painting of Mary McKillop, Australia's first Catholic Saint is very large, 6' x 4' or 180cm x 120cm.
I ended up going with a tripod, @ F22, and ISO 1600 and I then processed in DXO.

The painting is a little softer than the woman but to me this feels ok.

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NR. Does it have to be in two separate rooms? Could you try two separate shots with each subject in focus in turn?
Combine the two shots in PP using layers. Hint: Don't have an OOF principal.

A sketch would be handy to visualise the situation.

Thank you for this suggestion.
In the end I felt I should shoot this as I did because this is what the children see each morning when they come into this building.

[Grant S]

Looks like a pretty pleasing result. The softness of the painting isn't too noticeable unless you look closely for it and it certainly works for the shot. The backlighting gives her hair some nice highlights and about the only thing I would change is the crop in the top left of the shot to get rid of the corner of the room which is a little (but not very), distracting.

[ameerat42]

Quite a good effort. The slightly softer painting is apt. It is still quite recognisable.
Good framing too. You might just want to do something with the small strip of ?wall near the
person's arm.
Am.

[NRandall]

Looks like a pretty pleasing result. The softness of the painting isn't too noticeable unless you look closely for it and it certainly works for the shot. The backlighting gives her hair some nice highlights and about the only thing I would change is the crop in the top left of the shot to get rid of the corner of the room which is a little (but not very), distracting.

Jodie web 1024b.jpg

Yes I agree about the top left corner. This was a compromise given the constrictions for having both in the field of view.
I might try to darken that corner in some way later, as I don't want to crop it down much more really.

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Quite a good effort. The slightly softer painting is apt. It is still quite recognisable.
Good framing too. You might just want to do something with the small strip of ?wall near the
person's arm.
Am.

Agree, this also helps the overall image when done proportionately.

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Here is the slightly tightened image.

[ameerat42]

Yep. t's better

[Ruski]

Hi maybe also clone out the grey strips of paneling above and to the side of the image. I had a rough go and will post if you want, i think it looked a bit better.