[gatorguy]

Critical focus is one of my priorities. When reviewing shots after a model shoot I always do so at 100% (even in this pandemic I photograph multiple people a month). If eye-focus isn't perfect zoomed in (and I don't always intend for it to be the leading eye) I'll reject the shot at least for the moment, barring some other more compelling reason to further process it. It's an OCD. And for those otherwise keeper really, really close-but-not-quite images Topaz software has been a salvation in fixing focus.

So for me I'd say yes it is essential.

At the same time, I've rarely had any problem using single-point autofocus & recompose tho I won't say never. Comparing images during some shoots with any of the mirrorless users who depend on their camera's Eye Focus shows our results to be close to identical so the mode of focus doesn't seem problematic. Of note there have been recent scenarios where their EyeFocus fails entirely while my camera still clicks away in near-perfect focus. It happens.

So for the subject matter important to me proper focus is the least of my issues, almost non-existent. Learning better communication skills and a greater understanding of augmented/artificial lighting techniques is what I'd benefit from more than anything and that won't change no matter what camera I use.

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Last edited by gatorguy; 01-20-2021 at 09:54 AM.

[ffking]

To me it's one of those things that is important because it is expected rather than intrinsically - and expectations are based on modern lenses and pixel-peeping. There are many fine portraits that don't have perfect focus on the leading eye - the further you go back in time, the higher the number - but if that is hat is expected, then anything that doesn't comply is seen as a mistake, a failure on the part of the photographer. So I'd say yes it is essentially vital if you ant to sell your work or submit it to competitions - until, that is, the fashion changes

[stevebrot]

Isn't this leading-eye-in-focus rule like all the other rules in photography?

FWIW...I don't remember seeing much discussion about attaining critical eye focus until some cameras began offering the feature. Once that happened this forum lit up with questions and complaints about nailing leading eye focus with Pentax cameras.

As for rules, the one I remember is that the viewer's eye expects leading features of the obvious subject to be in focus with critical features to be in sharp focus. The rest can fade to blur.


Steve

[othar]

I am also in the "it depends" department.

If it is a portrait with as thin a DOF as possible then i expect at least the leading eye to be perfectily in focus.
When using a narrower aperture a slightly missed focus is likely beeing concealed by the greater DOF (the emphasis is on slightly though).

How much focusing error is acceptable depends also on the intended image size and the kind of picture I am taking:
When I am meeting with someone soley for the purpose of a photo shooting I certainly pay more attention to correct focusing, than when doing some snapshots during hiking or the like.
So basically the intended purpose of the picture is determining the importance of a good focus (say: aplication image vs. memento of something).


As for some iconic portraits that don't have perfect focus on the eyes. While I agree that a missed focus doesn't necessarily ruin a picture when the image in question captures something else like the mood, character, or the like of a person, I don't think the missed focus adds something to the picture though and it more than likely happened unintended by the photographer, it just wasn't evident before developing the film whereas in digital we can immediately check focus on the camera.

[ehrwien]

And narrow DoF is a distortion, not present on the real world. Clipping the normal DoF and altering the image so information normally available to the human eye is clipped. I've always thought the photograph should the best possible representation of what my eye sees. I've never experience narrow DoF in nature.

Well that's odd. Let's do a little experiment: hold out your hand at an arm's length away from your face and focus your eyes on it. Then focus your vision on the background behind the hand - don't move your eyes and don't refocus your eyes on the background, as that would blur the hand. If you're not cheating, you shouldn't be able to discern details in the background that you could when refocussing your eyes on them...
Isn't that also about the distance you're away from a person you're close to when talking (when there's not a pandemic going around that profits from close contacts... ) - the distance a portrait could be taken at to convey the intimacy between the two of you in the photograph. A part of that would be missing if all the background was in focus as well - it could even be distracting instead of accentuating the person with a nice sharpness gradient. Stopping down a lens from wide open makes it perform better - sharper - more often than not, in addition to enlarging dof. But sometimes more sharpness does not have a flattering effect on the photo of a person - highlighting all the small impurities in a face of a person we don't even notice with our own eyes if we are an arm's length away from them. I've found myself reducing microcontrast on portraits taken with my DA 70 wide open because it is too sharp. With other lenses and for other purposes I find myself rather adding a little microcontrast to the image. There are people whose portraits look better with more sharpness/microcontrast, but there are also people whose portraits profit from more softness.

[GUB]

I like shallow field photography and feel that focus on the leading eye is very important but the lips and nose tip almost as important . The trailing eye is less critical and the ears superfluous. A portrait is about communication (most photos are) and I feel this is very much how we perceive the face triangle. The trailing eye is arguably equally important but I think we get so many clues of depth from it being slightly softer that having it softer adds a 3d dimension to the image. Talking generally of course.

[biz-engineer]

Eye AF won't be critical once AI eye replacement feature will be added.

[pschlute]

I would be interested to see some examples from the past of where the "focus on the eye" theory is ignored. Most images I remember generally stick to that rule.

[BigMackCam]

I would be interested to see some examples from the past of where the "focus on the eye" theory is ignored. Most images I remember generally stick to that rule.

The two Jane Bown shots I mentioned are a good starting point:

Björk (in-focus point is, IMHO, just in front of the leading eye - closer to the fingers)

Orson Welles (in-focus point is the trailing eye - which works beautifully considering the lighting and contrast)

Note that I'm not suggesting Ms Bown and other photographers chose to ignore the theory of focusing on the eyes... I'm saying it didn't always work out perfectly. There were minor focusing mistakes, yet the photos still worked...

[Sandy Hancock]

I don't consider myself a portrait photographer. Heck, I don't even consider myself a photographer - just a camera geek who takes lots of photos of people.

But there is a distinct paucity of images in this thread....

For a start, I like exploiting the shallow depth of field of fast lenses for portraits. It is quite possible to get quite a bit in focus; six eyes, three noses and quite a bit of hair seem to be pretty sharp here. 85mm lens at f/1.4 on full frame. Click on the image to see it at full size in Flickr.



Even up close the one eye in focus look isn't inevitable. 77mm lens at f/1.8 on full frame





55mm lens at f/2.8 on medium format



200mm at f/2.8, full frame



On the other hand, sometimes totally missing focus can still result in a keeper. 77 at f/1.8 on full frame.



Likewise here. Focus is not as terrible, but by no means bang-on. 70mm lens at f/2.4 on crop.

[BigMackCam]

I don't consider myself a portrait photographer. Heck, I don't even consider myself a photographer - just a camera geek who takes lots of photos of people.

But there is a distinct paucity of images in this thread....

For a start, I like exploiting the shallow depth of field of fast lenses for portraits. It is quite possible to get quite a bit in focus; six eyes, three noses and quite a bit of hair seem to be pretty sharp here. 85mm lens at f/1.4 on full frame. Click on the image to see it at full size in Flickr.

...

Even up close the one eye in focus look isn't inevitable. 77mm lens at f/1.8 on full frame

...

55mm lens at f/2.8 on medium format

...

200mm at f/2.8, full frame

...

On the other hand, sometimes totally missing focus can still result in a keeper. 77 at f/1.8 on full frame.

...

Likewise here. Focus is not as terrible, but by no means bang-on. 70mm lens at f/2.4 on crop.

...

Awesome photos, Sandy. Interestingly - and again, this is just my personal taste and opinion - my favourite image of the group is the second from last.... the "totally missing focus" shot. I'm not suggesting this is what we should expect if our intention is to get the leading eye or another aspect of the subject in sharp focus with AF, but the photo works superbly (for me, at least) and would have an entirely different feeling if it were sharply focused...

[Sandy Hancock]

the photo works superbly (for me, at least) and would have an entirely different feeling if it were sharply focused...

...which is, of course, exactly the point I was trying to make by posting it

Many thanks for your kind comments Mike.

[Dan Rentea]

In a recent thread (and several others over the years), the benefits of Eye AF in mirrorless cameras were discussed, comparing the potential inaccuracies of focus and recompose technique with a DSLR through the optical viewfinder.

This has me wondering just how many of us consider absolute accuracy of focus on a subject's eye to be essential or even necessary.

When I review the work of my favourite portrait photographers from a purely technical perspective (as opposed to appreciating the aesthetic value of the photographs as a whole), it's clear that the leading eye wasn't always in perfect focus. Jane Bown's work contains numerous examples... in her captivating portrait of Björk, the leading eye is just out of perfect focus, whilst in her best-known Orson Welles headshot, the focus is considerably behind the leading eye. This takes nothing away from the photos, in my opinion... in fact, it arguably adds to the character of them. Certainly, Bown's clients and publishers found no fault with her images.

In my own photography (which, admittedly, includes very little portraiture) I of course strive for accurate focus, but I don't obsess over it. Minor discrepancies on fast aperture shots really aren't a big deal for me. I realise, though, this is my own personal tolerance, and clearly there are other folks for whom absolute accuracy seems to be of great importance.

How about you good folks - is critical eye focus essential to you, or are you less stringent about such things? Please share your thoughts and vote in the poll

Shooting portraits at fast apertures isn't for everybody. Some like portraits taken between f5.6 and f8. I like this kind of portraits also, but only in some circumstances. Portraits are about showing the expresivity of the model. If the focus on a portait it's not on the leading eye, it tend to look a little odd. The exception for me are candid portraits where I think it's less important if the focus isn't on the leading eye. That's why I voted important rather than essential.

I tend to shoot portraits at fast apertures when models faces are towards me. This way the viewer is even more attracted into having an eye contact with the model. If models look to one side, I tend to shoot between f4 and f5.6. Below is an example of what I consider an exceptional portrait (attitude of the model, exceptional use of lights) and Peter Hurley from what I saw in his tutorial can take such portraits at f1.4 or f4 and look as good as this one. That's why I love his approach when comes to shooting portraits.

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Below it's a portrait that would look odd to me if the focus wouldn't have been on the leading eye.

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For this kind of portraits (candid shots), having the leading eye in focus or the entire image in focus it's less important to me.

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[automorphism]

I consider it essential. I know a portrait can still be pretty good if it is slightly off, but I also shoot for myself and it bothers me too much for me to consider a portrait printable if the leading eye is not in perfect focus.

[clackers]

Yeah, I'm with Sandy, our feelings need to be demonstrated with our examples we've shot, IMHO.

This one I took cannot be a keeper by portrait standards, only by, say, street photography or journalism standards.

The difference is that it's lazy when you have time to not get this right. The bar is higher for setup portrait photography than it is for off the cuff candids. This goes into the bin, I'm afraid.

Photography is one of those things where in portraits or landscapes or product pics or whatever, there are a number of boxes you have to tick, and a negative outweighs the positives. A competition judge, for instance, considers you just have to get it right, no excuses. Whatever effort you went to just to get the pic as it is just doesn't count, it's not reflected in what the public, the judge, fellow photographers, the client or commissioning editor feel about the resulting 'nearly got it right' photo.

And chimping as a process is much maligned, IMHO - I've not understood why someone wouldn't study their first shots in any sequence so they don't waste all that follow!