Portrait Photography | Focus On The Eyes

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | HaiQal | Portrait Photography | Focus On The Eyes

People often said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Nothing further from the truth actually. Whenever people make contact or whenever we look at someone portrait or photograph, it is the eyes that we will look for before we moving at some other part of the body so the eyes is very important and is is very important also to get the eyes sharp whenever we photograph someone.

To those of you who just start taking photography as a hobby and just bought a new DSLR and are interested in portraiture photography, always keep in mind that when we photograph someone, make sure that we focus on their eyes first, make sure the eyes is sharp and it doesn’t really matter if some other part of the body is blur but make sure the eyes is tack sharp. Unless you shoot in the studio using aperture f8 or f11,most people who shoot portrait outdoor will often use big aperture like f2 or f2.8 and when we use this aperture, the depth of field is very shallow, meaning that there is only small part of the frame that will be sharp, so we need to focus where it matters and it’s the eyes.

Another thing that must be keep in mind is that, always make sure we use a very fast shutter speed when shoot a portrait especially a portrait of a child because they don’t know how to stand still, always moving here and there unlike photographing a model where they can sit still and make very few movement. Some people said that it is hard to get a sharp image using 50mm lens at wide aperture, I guess they must be using a slow shutter speed or they don’t lock the exposure. If we want to photograph a person and don’t want their face to be really in the middle of the frame, maybe to right or left a bit then we need to recompose.

How to do it, just start focusing on the eyes and after that just hold the focus, and recompose, some camera allow you to lock the focus by using AF Lock button which usually located at the back of the camera and most camera can lock the focus as long as we hold or press the shutter button gently before we press it fully. Focus on the eyes, “lock” it and then recompose or release the shutter or press the shutter button fully.

The photograph of my son above were taken with my favorite 50mm lens, shot at 1/320 with ISO 200 at aperture F2. The reason I’m telling you is that, some people find it so hard to get a very sharp image when using 50mm lens at wide aperture. The depth of field is very shallow if we use big aperture like f1.2 to f2.8 and most people don’t realize that when we press the shutter button, sometimes, our focus tend to run away especially to those of you who like to press their shutter button the hard way. In order to prevent our camera to loose its focus when we took the picture at very shallow depth of field, we need to use a very fast shutter speed in order to freeze the moment and don’t forget to press the shutter speed gently, we don’t really need to push that shutter button hard in order for it to function, just a gentle push will do the job.

Whenever I use 50mm lens to take a photograph of my son, I will always make sure that I use a very fast shutter speed, mostly around 1/100 and above because if I use much slower shutter speed than that, the possibility for me to get out of focus image will be a bit high, my son is not a statue, he is breathing living human being and very active, even though if I can handhold my camera at a slower speed without too much shaking, I must also take into account that my son will move unexpectedly so the only safe way for me to really freeze the moment as I saw it is by using a fast shutter speed.

It will take some practice but just to be on the safe side, always use a fast shutter speed and the possibility to get a blurry picture will be reduce greatly. In portrait photography, it doesn’t matter how beautiful the person is but if the eyes is a little bit out of focus then it will not be that attractive to look into. If the eyes is sharp, then everything will look good. Always make it into a habit by focusing on the eyes first before we recompose for another creative angle, even if the person does not look directly into the lens, we must still make sure the eyes is sharp.

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