Extreme close up of an eye?

stefanhuberfilms

stefanhuberfilms

Veteran
Hey folks!

I'm currently working on a project where i want to shoot a ECU of an eye, reflecting the mountains in the eyeball.

I didn't find much about this scenario on the web, so any advice would be greatly appreciated, also if there are any tips regarding lighting this shot would be really helpful!

What lens should i use? I'm shooting on a FS700 with following lenses available: Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 ED, Sony Kit 18-200, Pentax 50mm f1.4, Nikon 135mm f2.8, Nikon 50mm f1.8 (Macro screw on rings available for that lens), Sony 16mm f2.8 (will be to wide i suppose) plus a 2X for Nikon lenses...

That's the closest example i could find:
eye_reflection-wallpaper-1920x1440.jpg

Thanks in advance!
 
There are 2 challenges here:

- your lens should get very close to the eye to get the shot, which is what a macro lens excels at.
- your lens should not get so close as to be reflected by the pupil and show up in the picture frame. That implies you'll either need a long macro lens or have to sacrifice IQ by cropping.

In the past I tried to get a clean shot like your example without cropping, but found that my 100mm macro wasn't long enough. Good luck to you.
 
Thanks for your reply henry. i will do some testing with the lenses i got available, but i expect that i won't get that close. We'll see if the 135 and the screw on diopters will do the trick... Otherwise there will be no way around renting a long macro lens. Any suggestions?
 
yeah, with macro tubes you should get close to that.

I've gotten these shots with my tamron 90mm 2.5 SP Macro

But I don't think I've gotten that good a reflection. It's a cool shot
 
This is a very hard thing to do.

You will want a long lens, because a wide lens close up you risk seeing yourself in the reflection and the reflection is of a very wide area, often making the object you'd like to appear in the reflection very small, despite it being very big. I've done this shot many times and a digital comp in the eye has ALWAYS worked best. Sorry to say.

Additionally, using a very long macro lens often causes jittery movement in the camera unless completely locked down, and even then the subjects natural movement that you normally don't notice, will cause issues. If standing very still there is a very subtle sway that goes unnoticed 99% of the time until you slap on a super long lens and get close focus on the eye-ball. Suddenly that small shift in weight of a person means the eye moves .5 of a cm in real life but about 20% of the screen width on camera.

It's tricky. Sometimes we will shoot with slight slow motion to elongate usable moments. Another thing to look out for is twitchy eye! It's funny how often we, again, don't notice until we are all up in there, that the eye makes some weird little twitches just doing it's normal thing. It's not until it's the size of a projection screen we see these strange twitches and it kind of takes away from the moment. It doesn't happen every time and i have no idea why, but sometimes it's there.
 
I've done this successfully once. That was without any particular reflection. And it only worked once. Everything said here should put you on the right path. I second the digital comp for the reflection- spherical eyes tend to do things with reflections you don't like. Take this in a blank room instead, so there's nothing to reflect. I think that's what happened in the photo you posted. Also make sure to shoot longer than you think you need to, keep the subject calm, and plan on going slow motion. That's how I got mine to work, slowing it down so that the split second that was still enough could fill the time needed. Which wasn't long. Some cleanup of the veins may also be needed to get it to look better. Eyes are weird looking in close up.
 
The Canon 100mm 2.8L macro IS USM is an amazing lens that could give you this result. Add an extension tube and you could take it even further.
 
Trying to get the eye correctly lit, framed, and looking in the right direction all while making sure the reflection is correct might be a daunting task. It might be much easier to shoot the eye and the reflection separately. Then composite them in Photoshop, AfterEffects, or some other tool.

Jim
 
Stefan, have you tried mounting any of your nikkors backwards? You can get dirt cheap adapters to connect to your e to f mount adapter (something like this http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-Filter-Reverse-Adapter-Cameras/dp/B001G4NBSC). Lenses like Canon's 100mm macro alone won't get you close enough. If this works with the metabone adapter and you can source one: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/183199-USA/Canon_2540A002_Macro_Photo_MP_E_65mm.html. I'd try the poor man's macro first - with some lenses you can get closer than 1:1 magnification. Here's a video I shot with backwards nikkors, mostly 28mm and 35mm. E.g. shot of thumb @ 00:19 gives you an idea of how big an eye will be. You have to nearly be touching what you're shooting but I think you could find the right angle and if the background is interesting enough an audience (other than forum members) won't notice.
 
Thanks for all your replies! Super useful! I'd really like to get this shot done without adding the reflection in post, but i will shoot this as a backup, just to be safe. I will do some testing today with the lenses and diopters i got available. I think i will shoot everything in 240fps and speed it up and add some motion blur in post if nescessary. I Hope that i can keep the DOF around the middle of the eye, leaving the veins blurred, like in my original post... Also i think i will go with either a Nikon macro lens or a retro adapter, if my lenses can't get the shot, which i suppose atm... The Nikon 105 macro sounds good! Is there a full manual version of that lens?
 
My wife and i just got that shot with the nikon 135 f2.8 @f11 and 3 diopters (1/2/4) screwed on... it was more or less quick and dirty, but with the right location and a little different angle the shot could work out kinda well IMO. It was really hard for her to keep the eyes open though. What do you think?

ECU eye.jpg

what i found: there is a thin fluid similar to oil on the eye, which should get cleaned in advance to get better results...
 
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rob norton said:
Stefan, have you tried mounting any of your nikkors backwards? You can get dirt cheap adapters to connect to your e to f mount adapter (something like this http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-Filter-Reverse-Adapter-Cameras/dp/B001G4NBSC). Lenses like Canon's 100mm macro alone won't get you close enough. If this works with the metabone adapter and you can source one: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/183199-USA/Canon_2540A002_Macro_Photo_MP_E_65mm.html. I'd try the poor man's macro first - with some lenses you can get closer than 1:1 magnification. Here's a video I shot with backwards nikkors, mostly 28mm and 35mm. E.g. shot of thumb @ 00:19 gives you an idea of how big an eye will be. You have to nearly be touching what you're shooting but I think you could find the right angle and if the background is interesting enough an audience (other than forum members) won't notice.
Click to expand...
hey rob, thats a great piece!
 
As a proof of concept, pretty good, if you ask me. Looking good for the real deal.

Some things that were not pointed out already:
* As much light as you can have, so that you can close the lens down A LOT and have some decent DoF to play with (otherwise either the eye or the reflection will be OOF); I think f/11 wasn't enough for your shot, and your framing is still a lot wider than in the reference pic
* Subject in the shade, reflected stuff brightly lit, so that the reflection is clear

I think the trickiest thing will be finding the right angle so that the eye and the reflection look good but the lens is not reflected in the eye
 
Thanks for your input Samuel! (or Norman?)

i did some more tests the same day and found that the doubler with the Nikon 135mm lens and one #2 diopter worked best...
closing the lens is a real problem , i was and will be shooting at either 120fps or 240fps which needs a lot of light already - My plan would be using the sun and a reflector to gain more DOF.

* Subject in the shade, reflected stuff brightly lit, so that the reflection is clear
Click to expand...

There's the next problem, i can't light a lake surrounded by mountains unfortunately... lol
 
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