Tip of the Day: Improving Focus and Brightening Eyes

If you've shot in a studio before, you'll know that it's pretty dark in there. Even thought ambient light from the room does not really affect the picture (f5.6, 1/250, ISO 100) photographers still like to turn off the lights because the modeling lights from the strobes are easier to see.

There are two problems to that:

First, your camera may have problems focusing under low light. That problem is especially evident when you're shooting with longer lenses and not using the center focus point. (please click here to learn why it's bad to use the center point exclusively while shooting with a telephotos)

The second problem is your model's eyes having LARGE, drug-junky'ish, dilated pupils. Remember the time you went to the eye doctor and he put the liquid thingy to dilate your eyes and make you look like a freak? This problem usually does not bother me when I'm shooting brown-eyed people but for lightly-coloured eyes, it's just unsightly (pun intended). You want those blue and green (or gray, as below) eyes to show their colours!














So to solve these two problems, I've come up with this little cool solution that I'm sure someone has thought of before. It's as simple as putting 1 and 1 together. I call it Shooting Commando Style.

A LED flashlight attached to the lens with bungee cords. (note: yes that's a macbook plug adapter)

Cool uh? now focusing is easy, eyes are bright and colourful, and as a bonus (if you're a guy), you can pretend you're a space marine hunting aliens in a derelict spaceship. That's another reason why I like turning off the lights.














At my usual shooting distance (around 8 feet), the light coming from the flashlight does not affect the exposure. If you like to shoot closer, you may want to use a flash light with a lower light output.

Also, the extra light may throw a tiny catchlight in the model's eyes and you may or may not want to retouch that out depending on your own aesthetic.

- TN