Eye Sharpness

[misteral]

One thing I've been told a few times when looking at portraits is to look at the sharpness of the subject's eye.

Can anyone help me with this - is there an example of what a "good" eye should look like?

[ravncat]

It should be in focus, and not out of focus, often this is more important for the "closer to the camera" eye, but it can also be important that it is the eye on a rule of thirds crossing. Often it is both eyes, but need not always be both.

[RichardTaylor]

It's not just people.
Here is an example of a sharp eye.

[autofocus]

Originally Posted by misteral

One thing I've been told a few times when looking at portraits is to look at the sharpness of the subject's eye.

Can anyone help me with this - is there an example of what a "good" eye should look like?

Because of the huge reduction in file size by Flickr, and then reduced again here by DPS, it's really hard to show how a well focused eye would look like. However, when you have a "good" eye you, literally, can count the eyelashes. The Flickr example below will give you some idea, but once again, this file was a reduced resolution for the purpose of loading to Flickr

Fun With Topaz | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[misteral]

Thanks for the replies so far.

Here's the picture that got me to ask it... http://flickr.com/gp/misteral/6jLu2c

It's something I've noticed a bit when doing similar shots. When viewing Original size, the "front" of her, the hat, looks to be sharp to me, but then the eyes don't. There should be just under 1 foot range for the DOF (90mm lense, f/3.5 from 13ft away), which should be enough to keep her features in focus.

Am I looking at it wrong?

[SusanH1970]

How are you focusing? Are you using the focus/recompose method, toggling focus points, or some other method?

Her left shoulder seems to be the sharpest part of the image to me.

[autofocus]

Susan's question above is the first thing you need to address. If you are shooting in an auto/green box mode, the camera will be choosing the focus point(s), and more often than not you will miss focus on the eyes. Obviously, the best way to assure sharp focus on the eyes is to select the eye to be focused on when composing the shot. You'd also have to consider other possible issues for the cause, such as how well your lens resolves at various focal lengths/aperture settings, ISO settings, slight movements on your, or your subject's part, camera settings as in servo modes vs one shot mode, etc. (servo modes will allow the shot to be taken before focus needs to be locked in, whereas one shot will always lock focus prior to the shot)

[OsmosisStudios]

There's nothing in that shot thats properly in focus. If she was moving, she could have moved forward/backward slightly and gotten herself out of the focus zone

[misteral]

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to try this again tonight.

The focus mode is on 'One Shot'. I'm fairly certain the focus points marked on her face, nearest her eyes, but when I try this tonight I'm going to pay more attention there.

Thanks for the insight so far!

[Hill Country Hack]

How about selecting a single focus point and use that one to focus on the eye(s) as Susan suggested. My focus recompose skills are not the best, so I toggle the focus point for the orientation/composition I'm shooting.