I have always wanted to photograph the human eye. I know you can just google it and see millions of images online but it’s never quite the same as doing it yourself (mainly the reason why I took up Astrophotography) Recently I purchased a 100mm Canon EF 100mm f.2.8L Macro IS USM lens and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Coupled with a 51.8 megapixel full frame Canon 5DSR the images should be fairly epic and from my preliminary research it also seems to be the perfect lens for photographing the human eye in all it’s details!

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So, I rounded up a few friends in my local pub, sat them down in some well lit conditions (primarily to keep the pupil size small, this meant the iris was at it’s largest and this is where the majority of the detail is) Set the camera to F8 and the results you can see below:

Whilst this photo wasn’t too bad for our first attempt, it just wasn’t what i wanted, in fact not even close to what I wanted to get. So it was back to the drawing board as it was quite clear that with a normal macro lens we weren’t even going to get close to the resolution and magnification that we needed to show the true beauty of an eye. Next step, lots of research and the discovery of the Canon MP-E 65mm F/2.8 1-5x Macro lens. This wasn’t a fixed focal length Macro lens, but is actually a zoom Macro lens, which, whilst an absolute nightmare to use on a live subject gives unbelievable results:

And here is my eye:

And we even cropped right in and got a photo directly of the Iris itself:

If you’re wondering what the weird half ring lights reflecting in the eye are, they are from the ring flash we used. We will shortly be releasing another article detailing the Canon MP-E 65mm F/2.8 1-5x Macro lens and the fun we had setting that up..

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I hope you enjoyed these pictures, we plan on revisiting photographing the human eye and getting more detail and more magnification to get the ultimate spectacular shots for your viewing pleasure! If you want to see more photos and keep an eye on progress then please follow my ‘Eyes Album‘ on our free photo hosting site ClickASnap

Tom Oswald

Tom is an entrepreneur and is the founder of ClickASnap

www.tomoswald.co.uk