Focus on eyes and Dof on the rest of the body

[Asylum Steve]

how they do those pictures where the eyes just jump out and are so clear but yet a small portion like the body and shirt are out of focus...

Julia, what you're referring to is called selective focus, and it's a classic technique to bring the viewer's attention to a subject's eyes.

The old school method of creating this effect is tried and true, and still used. A portrait or headshot lens (IOW short tele) shot wide open (largest aperture) will have the narrowest DoF.

For many years, one of the most coveted lenses for this technique was Canon's 85mm f/1.2. It is a super fast lens, and wide open probably has a DoF of about 1/4 inch, maybe less. Mucho expensive, though...

More normal lenses such as f/1.8 or f/1.4 will also give pretty good results, but the trick is to be extremely accurate with your focusing. You want the plane of focus to be the eyes, so anything closer or farther back will be slightly or greatly out of focus (depending on the distance).

Now, modern digital editing of image files in programs like photoshop allow you to mimic this effect very convincingly by using selective blur and masking, but it is definitely an acquired skill.

There is even a ps filter called lens blur, that creates a variable blur much like a camera lens would. It has quite a few adjustable controls to really allow you to customize the look. But again, it takes time to learn.

Hope that helps you...

[jhousman6]

thank you so much. I think the smallest lens I have is the 14-45 mm will this work?

[Asylum Steve]

thank you so much. I think the smallest lens I have is the 14-45 mm will this work?

Well, yeah. It's not the focal length of the lens so much as shooting it wide open. Of course, if your lens is slow (say f/4 or f/5.6), it will be more of a challenge to get that extremely narrow DoF.

Another trick is to shoot down at your subject slightly. This creates more facial area that is closer and farther away from you, so it is more likely it will be thrown out of focus...

[Stephen Lutz]

The focal length, the aperture and the distance to the subject are all important factors in portraits. The longer the lens, and the closer you are to the subject, the better you can selectively focus on the eyes with a wide open aperture. Example:

Here's one taken with a 10D, 28-70 2.8L @ 2.8 and 70mm. I was real close. Notice only the very narrow area of focus, on the near eye.