C&C requested-working on sharp eyes

[Stefany0219]

One of the few things I've been working on in my photography is finding focus in the eyes. This has slowly been getting better in my opinion, but sometimes you need someone else to tell you..Here's a close up of my daughter. She's pouting, and I chopped off the top of her head a little bit, but I was actually pretty happy with the eye focus. thoughts?

 

[Benco]

I think you're focused maybe half an inch too close. What aperture are you using, DOF looks pretty thin.

 

[Stefany0219]

I went all the way down to 1.2. A bit too shallow. Should have gone up a little?

 

[amolitor]

Focus looks spot on to me. Maybe a little noisy up close, and maybe very very slightly soft (camera shake? slowish shutter? lens softish wide open?) but the focus looks like it's right there.

Yeah, you should close down a little, in general. You don't need to go THAT shallow, the lens won't perform best wide open, and you will be savagely punished for every tiny error by the miniscule depth of field! 2.0, 2.8, these are good numbers for "shallow DoF portrait" I think.

 

[frommrstomommy]

I would upload via flickr.. photobucket messes with quality I think. 1.2 is probably not going to get both eyes in great focus.. I can't often get good focus on both eyes even at 1.8...try 2.2-2.8 range.

 

[kathyt]

Your focus is still a little soft.

 

[The_Traveler]

shooting at 1.2 make no sense to me.

 

[Stefany0219]

Thanks all. I'm going to try it again at a not so shallow depth of field next time

 

[cptkid]

Depend what lens you are using you should be using a smaller aperture than what have used. 1.2 is far to shallow as stated above.

Stop it down a bit if you want to get it tack sharp on both eyes.

 

[Benco]

That is one heck of a pout.

 

[o hey tyler]

Thanks all. I'm going to try it again at a not so shallow depth of field next time

You don't need to shoot wide open to have a shallow depth of field.

 

[Derrel]

I went all the way down to 1.2. A bit too shallow. Should have gone up a little?

"Up" means wider-open. Since you have an f/1.2 lens, you should have "stopped down". The convention is to use the size of the aperture, and not the f/number.

In poor light one will often "open up", to a wide f/stop, like f/1.8 or f/1.4.

When one needs enough depth of field to actually cover a face, one usually will elect to "stop down". Using the terms properly makes you sound smarter. -

 

[Stefany0219]

I actually know the correct terminology. Didn't take the time to think as I was typing. But I'm well aware of it