Focusing?

[CanonRebelz]

Hey there. So I'm going to get a 50mm 1.8 someday, maybe this month, I don't know. I'm not smart with portaits, so bear with me.
I'm wondering how people get the focus just on the faces so that the main face features (i.e eyes, teeth, etc) kind of stand out?

Thanks very much.

[Murtasma]

Shooting at a large aperture will throw the foreground and background out of focus. I think F1.8 is pretty thin and can be a challenge to get the focus just right since the depth of field will be very small. You may have better luck shooting at F2.8 or F4. Keeping the persons face further away from the background will also help keep the background out of focus when using smaller apertures.

[OsmosisStudios]

I never shoot at f/1.8 unless I have to.

Even at 10 feet, f/1.8 is only about an inch of focus. It's also never the sharpest point of a lens. I tend to shoot in the 2-2.8 range for portraits

[CanonRebelz]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

I never shoot at f/1.8 unless I have to.

Even at 10 feet, f/1.8 is only about an inch of focus. It's also never the sharpest point of a lens. I tend to shoot in the 2-2.8 range for portraits

Ah ok I see. Thanks very much.

Originally Posted by Murtasma

Shooting at a large aperture will throw the foreground and background out of focus. I think F1.8 is pretty thin and can be a challenge to get the focus just right since the depth of field will be very small. You may have better luck shooting at F2.8 or F4. Keeping the persons face further away from the background will also help keep the background out of focus when using smaller apertures.

oh alright, thanks for the tips. I will try that when I get that lens.

[dannyrich]

Also make sure that the focus point is manual selected and is right in the eye.

[CanonRebelz]

Originally Posted by dannyrich

Also make sure that the focus point is manual selected and is right in the eye.

Haha ok thanks 4 the tips everyone.

[rpcrowe]

I use the center point focus and focus on the eyes, press the shutter button half way to freeze the focus; re-frame and then shoot.

I agree that you are better off having your background a further distance to the rear of your subject and using f/2.8 or f/4 as your aperture.

Head and shoulder portraits with a 50mm lens on a Canon 1.6x camera (Nikon's 1.5x should be pretty much in line with the Canon) are most often shot from a lens to subject distance of about 8 feet or so, more or less (this is not exactly rocket science).

Depth of field for a 50mm lens on a 1.6x camera, shooting at 8 feet is .52 feet. That is roughly 3 inches in front of the point of focus and a bit more than 3 inches behind. It is easy to miss out and get some important portions of the face out of focus with a DOF this narrow. This could be the tip of the subjects nose in a full face view or one of the eyes in a 3/4 view. I don't even like ears out of focus unless you are shooting a subject with ears as big as an elephant.

Using f/2.8 will give you a DOF of a bit over four inches in front and a bit over four inches in the rear of the point of focus. Using f/4 will increase your DOF to a total 1.17 feet or 6.48 inches in front of the point of focus and 7.56 inches to the rear. This DOF is narrow enough to isolate your subject unless the subject is standing against a wall but, will give you enough DOF to include the entire head in focus.

Additionally, using f/2.8 or f/4 will result in better image quality using the 50mm f/1.8 lens.

BTW: Do a Google search using "photo portraits" or some equivalent as parameters. You will get loads of hits on sites devoted to portraiture.