Tips on getting sharp, crystal clear eyes in portraits

10 years 11 months ago #285149 by Fiona
When you are taking portraits and moving quickly. What are you doing to insure sharp crystal clear eyes? I do a quick focus on subjects face and have noticed in some photos when you look at them on computer, that some of their eyes aren't sharp. What can you do in situations when you don't have a lot of time and are hand holding your camera?


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10 years 11 months ago - 10 years 11 months ago #285151 by hghlndr6

Fiona wrote: When you are taking portraits and moving quickly. What are you doing to insure sharp crystal clear eyes? I do a quick focus on subjects face and have noticed in some photos when you look at them on computer, that some of their eyes aren't sharp. What can you do in situations when you don't have a lot of time and are hand holding your camera?


There's your problem. Slow down.

1) Put your AF point right on the eye and lock it.
2} Insure that you're getting sufficient depth-of-field ... adjust aperture or distance to make it so.
3) Hand-held shouldn't be making any difference ... since you're usually shooting with large aperture for DOF concerns, which gets you a fast shutter. But if you think the soft focus is due to camera movement, shoot at a faster speed, boosting ISO if you need to. And make sure VR/IS is on.
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10 years 11 months ago #285170 by garyrhook

hghlndr6 wrote: 1) Put your AF point right on the eye and lock it.


And in case it's not clear, this means single-point focus (AF).


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10 years 11 months ago #285270 by NickSano

garyrhook wrote:

hghlndr6 wrote: 1) Put your AF point right on the eye and lock it.


And in case it's not clear, this means single-point focus (AF).



Exactly +1


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