Difficulty getting good Depth-of-field pictures

[vanessa]

I am using a Canon early Rebel with a EF 17-40mm lens and am having trouble getting pictures with a good range of "in-focus" for subjects where lighting is good, but even with extreme manual settings, I cannot keep a subject from 6ft to 20 feet in focus throughout. Can anyone help me with recommending a lens, that has excellend Depth-of-field, or technique? My movie camera has a small lens that does a much better job of Depth-of-field than I can do with my Canon.

[Mhudson]

You must use a small lens aperture like f/16, f/22, etc or smaller.

Also the farther you are zoomed out the more DOF you will get.