eyes

[Margie22]

I always struggle with eyes. How do people get such sharpness and clarity in eyes? I always find my eyes get a bit lost and lose detail... not sure if its me or the lenses or what... I use a D90 with the 18-105 lens most of the time. I try to lighten the yes in post but then I lose the sharpness. Any input would be fabulous.

[dannyrich]

Firstly, at a risk of sounding obvious you have to focus on them. Try using a single manually selected focus point and use the centre one, then re compose.

Make sure you have a reasonable shutter speed and your f stop is around 7 or 8. That should eliminate shake and give you more than enough dof.

I don't often sharpen eyes but using sharpen brush just rub over the at 14% and you will see a difference. Also if you dodge the iris at 8% it gives a nice look.

Hope it helps!!

[scootermcq]

I took a quick look on your flickr (you have some really nice images by the way) and the one thing that stands out is most of your eyes are slightly underexposed. Really hard to bring out the detail when they are just simply dark circles in white. Most of them would benefit from some fill flash, which will light the eyes and allow you to see some of the details. You can really bring them out in post from there, but seeing them first will go a long way to getting the results you want.

I love the whole set (except as you noticed the eyes have a lack of detail), but here is an example of what I am referring to:
DSC_0346 copy | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Here is an example of light being applied to the eyes. You can see the catch lights, and that also adds a dimension to your image as well.

[Margie22]

Beautiful! See, I love that detail in the eyes. The picture of Giulia was in a dark room and I'm not familiar enough with flash yet to try that... I only have an on camera flash too. I'll keep practicing and I'll keep that in mind next time to brighten the eyes... thanks!