Pictures of someone's eye

Can anyone give advice on how to take a close up picture of someone's eye? I want the eye and some skin around it to portray a certain amount of expression. Is this something anyone is experienced with or am I a pioneer (I doubt it)?

kbreit wrote in post #5418010
Can anyone give advice on how to take a close up picture of someone's eye? I want the eye and some skin around it to portray a certain amount of expression. Is this something anyone is experienced with or am I a pioneer (I doubt it)?

I'd think a macro lens would be the best bet, although there are certainly other lenses that will do close-up work. The macros, though, can not just get close, they are also able to capture up to life-size images, which other lenses can't without tubes and add-ons which can make things complicated and lower the optical quality.

As far as "capturing the expression, well, the lens captures what you "see", so if you can compose a shot that "captures the expression", the only factor at extreme closeups is a sufficient depth of field. With a macro lens, you will be backed off from maximum magnification, which should help the depth of field to not be ultra-shallow.

However, with a "normal" lens with close-up capabilities, it might be easy to take a fuller field-of-view shot then crop that "eye that shows the expression"...

I took a pic of my cousins eye that was bothering him once.
This is straight out of the camera, no PP done.

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Great answers guys. I was figuring using a macro lens, but I didn't know if there were any recommendations regarding lighting or whatnot. I'll just try to do it in a well, evenly lit area. I want the pupil to be large so it maybe harder for me to get good lighting and a large pupil. We'll see what happens.

I took this shot of my own eye with the 50 Compact Macro. It only goes to 1:2, so a 1:1 macro would obviously get a lot closer.

I simply put the camera on a tripod next to a doorwall (facing in). Then I looked outside myself and took the picture. The biggest problem is that you can clearly see the camera reflected in my eye.

It will be tough to get a large pupil, because the subject will need to look at something dark and then the eye will be dark too...basically you will be struggling to get much shutter speed plus you will want to stop down for a macro shot.

Anyway, all that work and I forgot to smile.

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Not that I have done this, but if you want a large pupil, shoot them in the dark using flash. The flash could be off camera, and diffused.

I think the best way to do it is with a macro lens such as the 100mm 2.8 and a lens mounted ring flash. I've got some great results this way from testing it out at my workplace (sorry, no images to show for it though).