[Leica] Focus on the glasses? Or the eyeballs?

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Kyle Cassidy asked:
]Subject: [Leica] Focus on the glasses? Or the eyeballs?


> Someone rightly pointed out that in my recent portrait of george crumb
> > http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy/pix/paw/2005/31/2.jpg
>
> I focused on the eyeglass frames, rather than the eyeballs -- and this is
> something I've always done thinking that if the eyeglass frames are in
> focus, it gives us the illusion that the FACE is in focus in a way that
> sharp eyeballs and blurry glasses frames doesn't. is there real 
> conventional
> wisdom on this? What do the real photographers do?<<<

G'day Kyle,
I don't know about this part,  ;-) >>What do the real photographers do?<<< 
:-)

But I'd have done as you did but try for a smaller aperture and extra depth 
to keep the eyes a tad sharper or as sharp as the eye glass frames if 
possible without spoiling the overall effect of the moment. I think it's 
something like a portrait with the tip of the nose out of focus and the eyes 
are in focus. Or vise versa. The out of focus area becomes a distraction.

I found by looking at your portrait several times.... turn it off and 
quickly bring it up a number of times and the eyes do become a distraction 
because they're slightly soft. I'm a stickler for "sharp eyes" in any 
photograph ( light-eyes-action) certainly when they play a prominent role as 
they do in this tight full face portrait, I'd most certainly try for 
sharper. As in, keeping glasses and eye balls sharp and let everything else 
fall where it may.

If the glasses were soft and being so prominent as shown, I'm sure they'd be 
a bigger distraction than the soft eyes. But I bet the only way to resolve 
this without a hundred thousand posts and opinions would be a shot made 
focusing right on the mark where you did on the frames. Then do the same 
shot same aperture, but focus right on the eye ball and compare.

Be an interesting home work project for an enterprising shooter. ;-) Of 
course one would require similar glass frames and facial structure to be 
reasonably effective.

However, apart from my minor comments I think it's a damn fine photograph! 
Good on you. :-)

FWIW.
ted