Need some help with regards to shooting wide open

If you have arrived here because you love shooting wide open all day long and composing then this is the question for you...

I am (im sure youve noticed) shooting a lot of portraits at the moment and for quite a while I thought my "new" DA* 50 135 was focusing incorrectly at wide apertures when focusing on an eye and recomposing. This of course is a super noob mistake to make and i should know better. I love shooting wide open but because of movements it throws it out.

You guys out there that have more experience than me what do you do to work this out?

- Do you shoot narrower apertures?
- do you use different focus points?
- Are do you simply lock on shoot and crop later?

I appreciate that most of you will favour F4 etc but I would be happy to hear any tips

TA!

QC

I tend to focus and re-compose, a minor movement will make very little difference unless the distance from the focal point is altering, which for portraiture it should not move very much.

I would check the AF fine adjustment Alistair, I have had to dial in '+5' on my K-3 with the DA*50-135 and it's now very accurate at the widest aperture.

Regards
David

Portraits need us to focus on the eyes, unless there's a reason to change that such as the famous shot of the boxer, concentrating on his huge gloved fists.

There's not much DOF at wide apertures, so the subject moving and the photographer moving can easily throw the focus point out. Just keep shooting and the success rate will improve.

It's also possible to take great portraits at apertures even down to f/22 and many classic Rollei TLR portraits do this.

The most important things are the eyes and matching the technique to the characteristic that you want to bring out in the subject.

I find if I want to nail the eyes, then its best to get the centre-point onto an eye, focus and hold - then move to compose and fire, and all quickly. If you get a few goes it usually helps, and a bit of a burst can help also if there's slight movement, you should get one good hit.

I get good results on manual lenses with 'catch-in-focus' - but it only fires when the centre is focussed, so can be a bit hit and miss - but when it hits its spot on, so again the bursts work well for me there.

I doubt many of us use pre-set different focus points - its just too much faffing when you've got a person waiting - I think that technique would only be good for static objects.

What do you mean by focus and re-compose being a 'super noob mistake'?

Useful points for us all?

Focussing and then composing shouldn't throw it out @ f/2.8. I've never had that problem with my 50-135 and I almost always use it at 2.8 being a wide open fan. = have you checked the AF setting for it?

Get yourself a 50/1.2 then you'll see what razor thin DOF is [ It would also well suit your current street portrait style ]

I was lucky to get this couple of candids at a burger stall, manual focussing @ f/1.2

click on them to see at a decent size

Focussing on the eye will lead to miss focus as the front of the eye is clear the camera will actually focus on the rear of the eye ball. Instead focus on the eyebrow, sharp brows always show sharp eyes.

So don't eyeball it, eyebrow it!

Seems like excellent advice to me

+1

Nice Shots, interesting to know what she said after the second shot

I've been thinking about this and can't really see how that can be so. The area read by the AF sensor isn't so tiny that it's going to look beyond the reflective front of the eye and somehow focus on the very dark back of the eye.

That would imply a degree of accuracy and ability that isn't there.

She may not have said anything - but he did mention once that he'd been out of action for a while

I wondered about this too John - it does seem a bit highbrow.

Ok take a photo of a lens and focus on the front element does the camera focus on the front element or the aperture blades, this depends on the angle and any markings on the front element. Checkout these macro eye shots

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2246888/The-eyes-The-iris-picture...