Sharp Eyes

[Jamesfotos]

Hi, I'm very new to photography. I've looked at a lot of photos on here and the most stunning photos all have one major thing in common, Sharp, in focus eyes. I've tried very hard to get the eyeball in focus but I can never seem to do it. Does anyone have any tips or tricks on how to make the eyeball the focus of the picture?

[tjphoto]

Set your metering, and buy a canon!

[KodiakStar]

Camera brand does not matter really.

For sharp eyes, it helps to have a few things

Light! Obvious, but needed to really catch the detail.

A tack-sharp lens - and lots of practice to get it focused just so.
Spot-focus can help, with lots of light! Kit lenses can get you good
shots, but the better the glass, the better the shot.

Post-processing. You will see that the best "eye" shots on
here typically have some post-processing to increase the sharpness
as well as some curve / slight color saturation adjustments to really
make them pop.

(Lastly, eye color plays a big role! brown eyes are not as much fun to
photograph, but thats all I' have on hand... )

[Stryker]

You can also do this: zoom in until the eyes fill the frame and focus on the nearer one or either if they are equidistant. After this, zoom out and compose the shot as you want it. Obviously, if you are on auto-focus, keep the shutter release button half pressed while you are zooming out. Of course, the best sharp eyes are achieved in post processing, so brush up on your PP skills as well. There are a number of great tutorials here as well as on the 'Net.

[Jamesfotos]

Thank you all so much for your help

[Mr Guy]

Isn't the solution to all problems to buy more stuff?

Incidentally, zooming in and focusing on the eye and then zooming out is not very reliable for all lenses. A lot of lenses will focus creep while zooming.

The absolute BIGGEST key to sharp pop in the eyes is properly lighting them in the first place. If you don't throw enough light into the iris, you just won't EVER get the detail you want for all the screening and grain extracting you do.

Additionally, practicing your focus and being very aware of your camera's focus behavior is critical as well. Become familiar with either focus and recompose (ie, moving the focus dot onto the eye then recomposing while holding that focus) or practice using user selected focus points and putting the point directly on the eye, or just fine tune focus on the eye by hand (which is where a split prism screen comes in so handy).

[constructivecriticism]

Originally Posted by Mr Guy

Incidentally, zooming in and focusing on the eye and then zooming out is not very reliable for all lenses. A lot of lenses will focus creep while zooming.

Especially kit lenses.

'Focus creep,' that a new term for me. Guess you learn something every day. That's why we're here.

Question for you guys, since it's been mentioned by a couple of you: do you manually focus on a regular basis? I generally have a hard time seeing when focus is attained in the tiny viewfinder of my measly XTi. Or perhaps it's my vision?

[OsmosisStudios]

Its not your vision, its your focus screen.

Most dSLRs have very simple focus screens that arent well suited to manual focus. Ideally you'd swap it out for a split prism (like the old cameras). I wouldnt recommend it unless youre doing ALOT of manual focus.

I dont actually manual focus very often. Only when the occasion requires it.

[RexK_Cozumel]

Originally Posted by tjphoto

Set your metering, and buy a canon!

You've got to be kidding....... Metering really has nothing to do with focus. What you mean is set the auto focus point from group to a single spot. Then pre-focus on the eyes recompose and shoot.

And yeah I am not going to even get into how wrong that second part of the statement is.. :P

[constructivecriticism]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

I dont actually manual focus very often. Only when the occasion requires it.

Thanks, bud, good to know I'm not the only one.