50mm f1.8, is this good portrait lens for D7200?

donaldejose

If you have to use f1.4 then you must focus on the closest eye because your depth of field is so shallow. If you go to f2 or f2.8 you can try focusing on the bridge of the nose to see if that captures both eyes in focus. If you shoot at f5.6 or f8 you can set your camera to autofocus and let it pick the face. This is the quickest way to shoot, let the camera autofocus on the face with sufficient depth of field to keep the whole face reasonably sharp. I too want to see detail in the retina and have the lashes very sharp.

WestEndFoto

I have tried your bridge of the nose technique. I will give that a try.

donaldejose

"bridge of the nose" actually focus on the bridge of the nose closest to you at about f2 or 2.8 in an effort to "split the difference" between a sharp front eye and a blurry back eye. It all depends upon how far away you are and the distance between the eyes of the subject and the angle of the subjects face towards you. Remember when you focus on an object the area of focus is actually from about one third in front of the point of focus to about two thirds behind the point of focus. So when you focus on the front eye you are wasting the one third depth of field which exists in front of that eye.