How to take group photos?

Question

Photo

Good afternoon, tell me this moment.
Faced with a situation that it is difficult to catch people who stand in 3 columns in focus.
If the 1st is in focus, the 2nd is still tolerable, then the 3rd is no longer in any gate, more of a background, and not another row.
The distance to them is small, in the picture they are visible only from the waist to the top of the head.
This is already taking into account the aperture wound up to 8.

Answer 1

If the alignment is fixed (composition and distance to the subjects being filmed), and the lighting is normal, the way out may be to use a camera with a small matrix, for example 1 / 2.3 "
The best analysis of the issue was made a long time ago by Afanas .