I have a Canon Rebel T3i. I have taken a number of group photos w/tripod, w/o tripod, w/flash, w/o flash, various apertures, many on automatic mode. All on autofocus. All of them come out fuzzy, especially the people on the ends. The attached might look ok small on this web page, but if you download it and look at it 100% you will see what I mean. I have two T3i cameras and they both yield the same results. I would probably get a better photo with a phone. Any ideas?
If you can get the image straight out of the camera (unaltered by any other program) you can open the image in Canon Digital Photo Professional. Right click the image and this opens a pop-up menu. Select "AF Point" and this will turn on an overlay indicating which AF points were used to focus the image.
I normal force my cameras to use a specific AF point (or sometimes a zone as the pro bodies with more AF point can do) but here's an example taken with my 5D II a few years back which has the same 9 point AF system. This camera was allowed to auto-select the AF point, and here's a screen-capture of the DPP window to show you what it displays:
The black squares represent the positions of the AF points, but the squares shown in RED indicate which points the camera actually used when locking focus.
The camera will evaluate all available AF points to determine if it can lock focus with them and, of those, it will select the AF point that can lock focus using the closest focusing distance. In this particular example, the closest point would have been located near the "knee" of the lady seated at lower left. But instead it selected points near her chest and hip which it evaluated to be "about the same". The selection of the focus point isn't necessarily 100% reliable (but you do see these points blink in the viewfinder). To get more reliable focus point selection, force the camera to use the point you want to use for focus.
Note that it is possible to lock focus, then recompose the camera framing -- which would mean that the AF point used to lock focus is no longer in front of the subject used when locking focus (because the photographer recomposed the shot after locking focus.) So if you use the "focus and recompose" technique then displaying the AF points wouldn't be a reliable way to identify what the camera used to lock focus.
@TCampbell wrote:
@RobertTheFat wrote:<guffaw!> If I tried to set up equipment like that to capture the participants after a City Council Inauguration or Outstanding Employee Awards ceremony, I'd be laughed right out of the hall. Group photographs are already enough like herding cats, even under the best of circumstances.
I'm guessing you are probably not familiar with the EzyBox. It's specifically designed to be a highly portable softbox (not as bulky to setup as a regular softbox). They're often mounted on a monopod isntead of a light stand and held by a human assistant specifically to be mobile (intended for location shoots - not for studio use.)
But... If the "point" of the gathering is to get the photo (and it sounds like it is) then having supplemental lighting would be no big deal.
All my large group shots at weddings were done with a live human holding the "side light" (no light stands) because the live persons is infinitely more mobile and they know where to hold and point the light. But... I've seen photographers who don't have an assistant setup light stands. At a wedding, I don't like the delay of having to set them up and take them down (it's not that much of a delay... but considering the number of times the bride & groom will have their photo taken on that particular day, I try to minimize the amount of time involved.)
But this sounds different. It sounds like these people are coming together SPECIFICALLY to get a group photo.
Bob, just because YOU haven't used a setup like this, doesn't mean others have not used it successfully and... staring a response with "<guffaw!>" as if you think this is a joke -- which makes me question your professionalism and your experience.
Cut it out, Tim. I wasn't ridiculing your response; I was just laughing at the uncertainty of its applicability to the situations I face. Surely you must realize the respect in which your detailed and well thought out responses are held by the members of this forum. Most of us have written comments to that effect from time to time; and if you write a book, we'll all buy it.
Possibly the OP has the luxury of a dedicated occasion for group pictures, but I rarely do. Mine are almost always at the end of a ceremonial occasion that I've already photographed, with the participants milling around with their families or co-workers and/or itching to flee the scene. Anything that interferes with the process of getting them on the podium together and reeling off as many shots as they'lll stand still for, is a non-starter. 
