Eye Photography: What to Know & How to Nail It
This means that ideally, you’ll want a camera that works with interchangeable lenses, like a dSLR. It also has the added benefit of having a larger sensor. But don’t worry if you have a point-and-shoot with a fixed lens, or even a smartphone.
Third-party accessories are available that will allow you to increase your camera’s magnification capabilities. These simpler cameras may even have a built-in “macro mode” that does an adequate job of letting you take close-up photographs with pleasing results.
Whatever camera you have, though, you’ll absolutely want to have a tripod for close-up eye photography. Any kind of magnification tends to magnify both camera and subject movement, so getting really sharp images with a handheld camera is difficult; a tripod will keep that camera steady. As an added benefit, a tripod also makes it much easier to take naturally lit photographs.
To hedge your bets and eliminate the possibility of shake when you press the shutter, consider also getting a shutter cable or remote shutter. Alternatively, you can try using your camera’s timer to release the shutter without you physically pressing on and potentially shaking it.
The rest of this article will present a number of simple close-up eye photography tips and techniques for you to try that will help you capture impressive—if not outright spectacular—pictures with only a little bit of effort! Let’s start with technical settings: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.
Eye photography camera settings
Use an ISO Setting somewhere in the range of 100-800.
Set it to the lowest ISO setting you can get away with, given the light conditions you have. The brighter your environment, the lower the ISO can go, and vice-versa. The major effect this has is the higher the ISO, the more sensitive it becomes to light and more suitable for lower-light situations, but it also increasingly produces more visual noise in the image.
That’s not much of a problem with regular photography, but with eye photography where you want exquisite and fine detail, the noise and tiny specks can ruin an otherwise superb shot. Take a number of test shots; see if you can find a good balance with ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to get the results you’re looking for within the conditions you’re shooting under.
Smaller apertures will likely work better.
Macro photography tends to make your depth of field much shallower, making it more difficult to get truly sharp images if you use a large aperture, like f/1.4 and f/2. Using a smaller aperture, such as f/8 and f/11, increases the depth of field, giving you a higher likelihood of capturing a very sharply-focused image.
The shutter speed isn’t as important.
If you’re using a tripod (and you really should), your shutter speed isn’t as critical as ISO and aperture, but you’ll still want to make sure it’s set adequately as you fiddle with various settings. You’ll want to ensure it bottoms out at 1/60; anything slower, and you increase the likelihood of motion blur ruining your shot. Even if your tripod eliminates motion on the camera’s end, your subject is a living thing that can’t be completely still.
How to light eye photography
Plan the lighting carefully and conscientiously.
With its somewhat minor and even non-existent role in close-up photography, backgrounds won’t likely be of much concern to you. Spend that time thinking about and analyzing your lighting. Aim for natural light photographs—have the model by a window—which will give you the best chance to capture natural skin tones and eye colors.
If the light’s too harsh, try diffusing and softening the incoming light with a very sheer white drape on the window. Also play around with using reflectors, like plain white boards, to bounce light onto the model to minimize any shadows and unbalanced darker areas.
