Sharp portraiture.

I've always loved the tack sharp, shallow DOF tight portraits. A lot of them I see are from street shooters, but there's others as well, such as Platon. I guess it helps that he's using MF cameras.

Anyway, here's my attempt. After trying this I now know that I need to correctly adjust the diopeter. Wearing glasses makes it a bit harder to MF with a really wide aperture. Are there any guides on how to adjust the diopter adjustment properly?

This was shot with an 85 f/1.8 @ f/1.8 I see that I could stand to close the aperture a bit, as the focus is on the skin just infront of the eyes and the eyes are out of focus. I finally did this with AI AF focused on the eyes. The lighting could use some work as well, but I was mainly insterested in trying to get the look down.

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Glad you put the AF on the eyes. Good job!

This is sweet. How far away were you standing?

It's actually pretty tough to nail the focus exactly when you're shooting with such a shallow depth of field because you and your subject will always be slightly moving (assuming you're standing).

Staszek wrote in post #11461399
This is sweet. How far away were you standing?

3'-4' I'm guessing? 85 f/1.8 on a 5D MKII and the photo wasn't cropped.

jra wrote in post #11461758
It's actually pretty tough to nail the focus exactly when you're shooting with such a shallow depth of field because you and your subject will always be slightly moving (assuming you're standing).

And that's why I'm patiently waiting for a 5D MKIII in hopes that they make one of these with an improved AF. I'm too blind to manual focus and the camera doesn't like to AF when it's really dark.

I think you were probably a bit too close for that aperature. You have plenty of room to crop outside of the camera in post and standing farther back would have given you a bit more depth of field so that the lips would have been sharper, even with the same aperature. Still, I like "the look".

Village_Idiot wrote in post #11443547
Are there any guides on how to adjust the diopter adjustment properly?

Someone else may have a better idea, but I just set the camera to display the maximum # of focus points in the viewfinder and just turn the diopter adjustment wheel until they look sharp. Be sure to re-check it once in a while though as I don't believe there is a way to lock that setting

I find this photo freaky looking. His eyes (and skin around them) over sharpened. It is also weird to see his teeth in focus and his lips not. Overall it is not a flattering photo IMHO.

HappySnapper90 wrote in post #11462431
I find this photo freaky looking. His eyes (and skin around them) over sharpened. It is also weird to see his teeth in focus and his lips not. Overall it is not a flattering photo IMHO.

That's great, because there was very minimal sharpening done in post. Maybe I shouldn't worry about buying the 85 f/1.2 after all?

Village_Idiot wrote in post #11462444
That's great, because there was very minimal sharpening done in post. Maybe I shouldn't worry about buying the 85 f/1.2 after all?

Yet something was done to downsize the image, which you likely applied some sharpening afterwords since downsizing by nature makes a softer image unless you use "bicubic sharper" function. But even that function sharpens.

From a different session:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/cokronk/4459453​998/

Purely my opinion: No rules here. It should be either a) what your subject wants to project/convey if you are hired or b) if shooting for you what feeling are you trying to capture? Just be true to your clients wishes if hired or true to your intent if you are doing it for you.

Jase1125 has a good point. I am a ridiculously happy person and always have a **** eating grin on my face in photos and in life. My son, however, shot this current profile picture of me a few weeks ago, and I'm serious, not smiling at all, and I love it. Some might say it doesn't capture my personality, but it does capture one side of my personality...so, yeah, no rules here.

Awesome shot dude!

HappySnapper90 wrote in post #11462459
Yet something was done to downsize the image, which you likely applied some sharpening afterwords since downsizing by nature makes a softer image unless you use "bicubic sharper" function. But even that function sharpens.

Really? I've always thought that resizing an image makes it appear sharper. The only sharpening that was done was some USM to the full sized image before it was down sized.