Timing is everything! So turns out, the day this challenge is issued, my wife is getting an eye exam to see if she is a good candidate for laser eye surgery. So she comes home and has the coolest dilated pupils ever! I like it because you don't get to see a photo of the pupil wide open like this often, obviously it's supposed to shut down when there's light present. Some color correction in Lightroom and I cropped it a bit because I'm too cheap to buy a macro lens, maybe one of these days. Canon 60D, EFS 55-250mm, f/5.6, ISO400, 1/6sec shutter.
-Kirk Meyers
One of her eyes is pure green, the other is a mix. When I first met her she told me: "When I cry my eyes turn blue". I caught them changing.
Olympus E-420, f/1.2 Exp 1/60, 50mm ZUIKO OM lens MF, ISO 100.
-Konstantinos Fylatos
For this contest I took my boyfriend outside, ordered him to look in the sunny direction, stuck my camera in his face and clicked away. I love the yellow loops in his irises. Taken with my Sony DSC-H20.
-Leah Henkin
I recently purchased an underwater camera for our kayaking and snorkeling adventures, and when I received my brand-new Pentax WG-1 I saw that it had a super-macro mode with 5 LED lights around the perimeter of the lens - a sort of cheap ring light for an inexpensive point-and-shoot. I took a shot of my daughter's and wife's eyes, and of the two my wife's was a little clearer.
Camera: Pentax WG-1
Mode: 1cm Macro
ISO: 800
Speed: 1/15
Focal Length: 6.1 mm
-Lee Manevitch
I work at the Eye Institute at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, where, as an ophthalmic assistant, I work every day hand in hand with a plethora of doctors in order to accomplish something as simple as a routine eye exam to something as complex as an inraocular injection to treat macular degeneration. Luckily, Friday was a slow day for us, and I was able to pull aside a few of my fellow technicians to help me with this contest. In my contest photo, we have a classic head-on shot focused on the iris. I used the slit lamp to provide the lighting at the eye (convenience, more than anything).
Taken with my Canon Rebel T2i, f/10, 1/40 sec. exposure, ISO-3200, +10 diopter (magnification) macro lens attached to my stock Canon 18-55mm IS lens, no flash.
-Logan Halloran
Camera is Nikon D700 with a Nikon 24-70mm lens set to 70mm. F16, 1/250 sec at ISO 1600. Cropped in photoshop.
I recently purchased some dolls at a thrift store for another project I'm working on. I find their realistic-looking features a little creepy and when I saw this "eye" challenge I decided to use one of the doll's eyes.
-Lynn Salce
The morning this week's challenge was announced on a particularly bad day for me. It was the anniversary of the death of a beloved family member, and to top it off, my car was broken into - in my building's "secure" garage. I managed to hold it together pretty well, until my Dad called later that day to check on me. Remembering the challenge, I grabbed my camera and tried to get a picture of me crying. I know the partially colored photos are a bit cliched, but everything other than my iris was red and inflamed - you can see a tinge of it. The remaining colors are mine. Shot with my Rebel T2i, ISO 400, shutter 1/60.
-Marion Cotesworth-Hay
Using a Sony Alpha A55 with a 50mm f1.4 lens with a couple of macro screw-on lens at a distance of about 4 inches. because of the close range and the even small amount of focusable area, the camera was on manual focus and I was using a remote release so as to not nudge the camera after getting it, and my daughter, set.
The subject is my daughter and I provide full permission for her.
-Marvin Francois
After taking a number of photos of my son's eye, I knew I needed to do something interesting about the light source. The light bulb reflection in the eye was too detailed so I decided to change the lighting. I actually got my idea from "The Lord of the Rings" movie. I remember watching a "making of" documentary and saw how they used Christmas lights to create some interesting reflections in Galadriel's eyes. I gave it a try and I like how it turned out. Its certainly not as good as a Hollywood movie but its as good as I could get in the time of a 6 year old's attention span.
Canon EOS REBEL T1i, Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens with extension tubes, 1/80, f/1.8, 50mm+, ISO 800
-Matthew Johnson
I thought I'd take the opposite approach from the macro zoom, and use wide angle distortion to my advantage. After several attempts I realized that my eyes don't open wide enough to do this concept justice from straight on. So I attached the camera to a monopod, held it at about 45 degrees from my head, with the filter ring pressed against my forehead to help pull my eye open, and fired with a remote release while I moved around a window to get different lighting. We're all lucky the wife didn't catch me in this little dance.
In addition to the nice ring around the iris, the bonus for squeezing the aperture down for maximum depth of field is a sunstar right next to the pupil.
Nikon D5000, Nikon 10-24mm lens @10mm, f/22, ISO 1250, 1/60.
-Matt Owen
People always compliment me on my eyes and they're my strongest feature, so I had to show case them. It was quiet difficult to take a picture of my own eye, and this was the best I could do. I used my Nikon D3100 using a 18-55mm lens and used the lighting outside.
-Nicole Dulowski
This photo was taken with a Nikon D3100 and a AF-S DX Micro-Nikkor 40mm F/2.8G Lens.
This is our cat Hobbes, who is about 1 year old now. we rescued him from a shelter in brooklyn when he was 2/3 months old. I was able to get this photo through giving him multiple cat treats to get to sit still. it was an early on sunday which is when he is all GIVE ME YOUR ATTENTION, so after playing with him and fattening him up on treats he finally sat down and i snapped this shot. i love this shot because he looks like an angry dictator, but hes the most loving animal in the world. when we first got him he immediately accepted up as one of his own and is never afraid to roll over and make us pet his belly. so this photo really stood out to me because it makes him seem more bad ass then his doofy self can probably ever be. Enjoy!
-Nicole Moskal
I shot this using a Nikon D800, Sigma 105 Macro, Tripod, Ring light, and one off camera flash. I asked my wife to put on some make up that would accentuate her eye color, and we decided in a b/w checker pattern, my main focus was to get the light from the ring light to frame her iris perfectly; overall we were very happy with the results.
-Pablo Piedra
I took this shot of my dad's eye one summer evening, I was trying my new gadget, the Ollo clip for the Iphone 4. The lens used was macro. Hopefully his eye becomes famous :)
Shot with Iphone 4 with macro Ollo Clip.
-Renaud Poirier
Nikon Coolpix P90
ISO: default
After a hot summer day my brother and I had been taking a swim in the lake. We got out of the water and dried off. I had been borrowing my aunt's camera at the time (she was visiting from Pennsylvania) and the camera was placed on the picnic table outside. I noticed something interesting that I felt the need to capture. I could see the lake in my brother's eye. I told him what I saw and my vision to capture that very moment. My brother being a cooperative model I focused the camera directly on his eye from close up and snapped the shot. My shot became my vision. My vision of his vision of the lake in his eye. If you look closely you can see the reflection of the lake in his eye in the photo. It was a beautiful day, an excellent setting for memories, and actualizing potential art.
-Rhiannon Lebel
Thats my girlfriend eye
Camera: nikon d90
Iso: 200
Lens 60 mm
F>2.7
V1/125
-Rodrigo Benavides
Yesterday it was a sunny day in Pittsburgh and, at this time of the year, the colors in the trees are amazing. For this submission I wanted to take advantage of that and reflect the beauty of fall in my friends amazing blue eyes.
This picture was taken in one of Pittsburgh many parks, under few, very yellow, trees.
Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel TX
Focal length: 55
F number: 9
Exposure time: 1/160
Manual focus
At the end, I cropped the picture to bring the eye closer.
-Roxana Gheorghiu
Canon T3i, 80-200mm lens, extension tubes, tripod, natural sunlight, and an angry/sleepy friend
1/125 shutter speed, ISO 100, aperture cannot be changed due to nature of extension tubes, manual focus
Instead of using macro lenses (which i do not own) i used the next best thing, extension tubes which I had bought earlier during the year for macro-based projects. I used natural sunlight on a very beautiful day in my friend's apartment. With all extension tubes (28, 14, 7mm) attached I used a mini tripod and zoomed in very close and manually focused for a crisp photo.
On a sunny Thursday afternoon after finishing my work at the research lab, I headed back to my college campus to kill time until my 5 o clock class in the evening. While scrolling through my email I received an email from my friend with the subject line blaring "URGENT READ NOOOOOWWWW". I hesitantly clicked on it to find the link for the challenge. After nearly a year of having purchased extension tubes for my camera I knew this was the perfect moment to test them out. I bolted from my study corner and out of the library racing to my car. I knew there were only few people in my very close circle of friends who had beautiful eyes and who would love to model them as well. That lovely lady who lent me her eyes is Tina. She is the type of person who can never stay mad at you for more than a few minutes and is the most forgiving person you will meet. Little did I know I would be testing her level of forgiveness. After racing across campus and entering the exit side gate to her apartment, I pounded on the door with all my might. After a few seconds of silence following my barrage on the door, I hear scurrying footsteps coming closer to the door. The door opens to reveal Tina, not the highly fashionable and perky Tina I see every day, but the only-2-hours-of-sleep-last-night, in her pajamas, nap-taking Tina. "WHATTTTTT!!!!". Softly I reply "I need your eyes". The anger and grogginess quickly vanished and was replaced with curiosity regarding my poorly stated request. After 20 minutes of explaining to her the who, what, when, where, whys of the situation she finally sat down to let me take pictures of her eyes. Even after waking her up from a long needed nap her eyes never lost the goldenrod and laurel green color warmth. With a surprised look while viewing the results of the shoot she quietly said "This was worth it," and it was.
-Seshidar Tekmal
i used iPhone 4s with a macro lense
-Shadi Noori
Canon 5D Mark II Camera, 50mm 1.8 @ 2.8, ISO 1600, Shutter 1/50, 580ex Flash
Taking a cue from the old idea of putting a black t-shirt over your head and pretending to be a Ninja,
I thought it would be nice to give that a try with a bit more style and focus on the eyes.
-Shannon Doyle
This photo is my own eye. There's no story really, I quit my job to travel around with my boyfriend (he works in the oil industry), I spend my time practicing photography, reading and being on the internet. Long story short, I came across this article and decided to try it.
Nikon D5100
50mm lens combined with 3 extension tubes 12mm, 20mm and 36mm at f/2.8 for 1/60 at 800 ISO
also used a sb-910 speed light, using a pringles can I modified to fit my flash to serve as a macro light diffuser.
-Sierra Taylor
I used my iPhone 5 and a macro lens.
-Spencer Parks
Camera: Canon 550D
Lens: EFS 18-55mm
ISO: 400
Exposure Time: 1/40
F No: 5.6
My girlfriend wanted to go shopping for new shoes today, whereas, I didn't. But, because I'm a good boyfriend I said I'd take her shoe shopping if I could take a picture of her eye for a photography contest. She agreed, not knowing that I'd want a few dozen shots in different light and conditions. So, this is shot the last shot I took before her eye looked into the lens and told me she would destroy me if we didn't get a move on. Even now she's looking at me with a desire to stick sharp objects into my eye.
-Steve Giblin
Sony a550
Sigma AF 180mm f/3.5 EX HSM APO Macro prime lens
f/5.6 1/125s ISO400
This is a self shot. I made a simple ring light out of paper and lit it up with a wireless flash from the front for even light on the ring. Because I have a cropped sensor, I wanted to focus at the minimum range, but that's incredibly difficult to do by myself... so what I did is use two mirrors (wall mirror behind camera, cosmetic mirror on the left) to check my screen, and I used a shutter release cable to snap the shot. Hope you like it!
-Tom Bielecki
I used my Canon 5d Mark 2 with a 24-105mm L series lens. I was zoomed in to 105mm. Set at a 4stop, and 1/5 shutter speed.
I don't own a macro lens to capture the detail of the iris, so I wanted to add a reflection in the pupil instead.
-William Marlette