thank you, and my wife thanks everyone too :)

thank you

I will have to watch tv more as I am not sure where that is located. Actually I was on the news one day and they where in my front yard, I was interviewed about a power outage in my area :)

thats what I get for not paying attention. Most of the time that I have seen them have been at the court house but I am really not for sure where they normally go :/ I am sorry for my ignorance but could you narrow it down more for me please? I am going to give my self a headache trying to think where they normally shoot from.

I have been looking for other backgrounds that would be good for the both of us but with her only being out of surgery for 10 days at the time of this picture I tried to keep it closer to the car :/
I am getting better, thanks for the input :)

thank you all

thank you for the kind words. We have done a few prints from my printer to make sure it prints the way we want and we have already started looking for a frame :)

As for a little gun all I can say if she wanted little she would not of married me :) (please don't take that the wrong way, I am about a foot taller and 150lbs heaver than her)

I wanted to share one of the wife and me after we had come home from church just 10 days after her surgery and my daughter has been helping so much around the house she also helped advise me with the composite. Please know that there is a lot more that could be done but we have enjoyed the end result. I know this is still far from the quality of what I have seen here and one day mine will be as good as the rest of you. This was taken with canon 70D f3.5, 1/160, ISO 1600, 18-55@18mm with flash on tripod in my basement using the camera timer. I would show you the original but the wife might shoot me :) lol

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thank you all so much for the information, I put it in my notebook and reference it when out taking pictures. I may of made a mistake and taken for granted that everyone knew that I was in the picture also and it would seem hard to us the assigned button for the rear button focus :/ But I can say when I am behind the camera that I have learned to use the rear button focus and to be honest there has been times I forget :/ I also practice keeping my arms tucked and work on my breathing for better pictures.
I have been having problems using the phone app to take remote pictures, sometimes it works great and others it just will not see the camera. I will be checking amazon for the one suggested as so many of them I have read have problems.
As for flash, I have been using a speed flash and utilizing a home made diffuser to avoid as much with shadows as I can, this photo was taken pretty quick as my wife just had surgery about a week ago and this was the first day she wanted to get out of the house, so I set up the tripod, had the camera as ready as I could and had a spot for her to stand, helped her out of the car and to her spot, checked the focus and positioning of the camera and pressed the shutter button to start the 10s timer, stepped there quickly and waited for it to take the picture.
I need to get some other couples together so I can take the pictures and see how they look verses using the timer :)

thanks so much for the advice and help, I will only get better :)

I had not thought to turn auto focus off after focusing on her eyes, I may try that.

I am also considering changing the setting to turn off being able to touch the screen to take a picture, because I had catch'ed myself touching the screen when pressing the shutter to start the timer and I think it has been changing the focus point. I would think that using zone and in auto it would correct itself but now I am starting to wonder.
I have been testing in almost all the settings on the camera, auto to manual and getting close results.

still kinda curious as to why my wife and I look like a composite on this photo? is it because we are a little out of focus and the furthest point is in focus?

thanks for all the suggestions so far it is giving me more to experiment with and make me better :)

The hard part with the eyes is that you cannot always tell from a small display and the photo was taken with a timer so I could be in the picture with my wife. A lot of time I have tried to just do the focus point of just my wife and then try to step in the picture with the 10s delay. I have noticed that sometimes it tries to refocus or part of one of us is slightly out of focus when doing single point.
I have been told that I over think things to much, this is one of those that I just cannot grasp like I want to :/

I don't know if the title would be the best to describe but I will try to explain my confusing the best I can.
The photo I will show you I was trying some different settings because of some previous shots kept coming up out of focus. Previous shots I used single point focus.
I am using a canon 70D and was set to use AI focus which will switch between one shot and AI servo.
for zone I was using ZoneAF this time. I have usually used single point but with a few out of focus shots I was trying this. for zone I have the center selected. And the last is the 19pt in which I have not tried yet.
for metering mode I have used evaluative metering as it seems to handle the most in any changes

Now the photo I had taken was using AI focus/ZoneAF/Evaluative metering at f8 / 1/160s / ISO 100 / 18-55@55mm
For some reason it seemed to focus on the furthers in the photo and the subjects are slightly out of focus and almost look like they copied for a composite with the hard edges they are showing.
Now I figure If I had shot at a lower "f" setting then there would of been more focus on us due to a shallow depth of field but I wanted to incorporate the old bridge.
Since I preview the shot on the camera it looked good but when I get it on the computer I see the concern. Should I of considered doing a single point focus so I would still get a good focus on the closer subject and yet still get good quality on the bridge?
I am really not sure and wanted to ask the experts :)

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I will show her what you said and surprisingly she smiled and said works for her :) And to me she is my hero and lately I have been able to do more for her and she cannot stand being waited on hand and foot... She says that is not in her nature :/
Again thank you all for the kind words...

well thank you, peanut is so tight with her that if I try to grab her arm in a joking way he goes nuts, and I am the one that has been feeding him lately hehe.
I will show her the post as will be an encouragement for her and while going through this recovery that is always a plus, thank you.

thank you for the kind words. My wife just seen that I put her picture on here with her hair looking the way it did and just to let you know my arm is hurting right now from the unforeseen rapid force I felt even as she is recovering. :)

Thank you, that is very kind and peanut would be happy to. So since you asked here is the rest of the family :)
1. Rosie - oldest, we have had her a long time and saved her from being put down. some kids where teasing her with food and she tried to get the food and also got a finger so they were going to put her down. She is a mix but pure in our hearts
2. Molly - is a pit mix and she is a ham. Family thought she was possessed as she would sit and stare at them for long periods of time, we saved her too and realized she would stare when she needed to go outside, she did that instead of barking.
their all family and my wife has called them her other kids a few times :)
Rosie - f5.6 / 1/100s / ISO 100 / 55-250@121mm
Molly - f5.6 / 1/320s / ISO 100 / 55-250@191mm

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