Sassenach Loc: Tennessee

I am a beginner photographer. This photo was taken using natural light with my Nikon d7500 with a 35mm (50) Sigma Art lens. Settings are 1/250. F1.8 ISO 500.
I used her eyes as my focal point. On another photography site, I’m told that my focus is off. Would upping the aperture help? Or make it more unfocused? I am looking for advice, please.

gsnelson Loc: Western Maryland

For me, in a portrait like this, if the eyes are in focus (and they are) the picture is in focus. That is what shooting wide open, as you did, does best. This is a very nice picture.

genocolo Loc: Vail and Gasparilla Island

Stunning photograph. May be off a little, but who cares.

Whuff Loc: Marshalltown, Iowa

In my opinion you nailed it with this one. I looked up the 35mm sigma art lens and it appears that it’s f1.4 at max. opening, so by stopping down to 1.8 you probably have the sharpest f-stop setting. If you had clicked the store original button folks here could examine a better copy, but from what you have shown I think you did an extemely fine job.

Walt

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

I'd say you took an exceptional picture of a beautiful child! You might want to avoid that other site

PhotoKurtz Loc: Carterville, IL

If the comment came from a stock photo site, I wouldn't be surprised. They never like shallow depth. They would want her ears as sharp as her eyes... As well as the foreground.

Erv Loc: Medina Ohio

Looks like a beautiful picture to me!!

Sassenach Loc: Tennessee

Original photo

(Download)

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Thank you for adding a version that can be downloaded. The comment about focus from another site hopefully explained their thinking. When zoomed in, the focus is perfect on her left eye. But, her right eye (our left when viewed) is slightly outside the focus plane. Since she is nearly parallel to the camera, a better composition would be both eyes in focus. So, if she or the camera were positioned straight on to each other, f/1.8 should have captured both eyes in focus. Shooting at f/2 to f/2.8 would have created a deeper depth of field capturing both eyes in perfect focus without changing her position. Or, her angle to the camera could have been changed to a greater angle relative to the camera emphasizing just the nearest eye in focus at f/1.8. These are artistic decisions, but a straight view such as this example, both eyes in focus is a more typical composition.

Looking at both images, the first seems to have some edits to her eyes. Since you didn't post that version to be downloaded, it's impossible to judge from the thumbnail how much an impact your editing made to the quality of the focus in the results.

Sassenach Loc: Tennessee

Thank you! Sorry I sent the wrong one. The only editing on the first photo was cropping and iris enhancement. I’m trying to load the sooc photo.
You’re advice makes perfect sense. I’m anxious to try again with your suggestions.

nimbushopper Loc: Tampa, FL

I think you've made a beautiful photograph here. I would have used a longer focal length lens, somewhere around 85mm to give less distortion to her face/forehead, but the picture as it is is just fine!

fourg1b2006 Loc: Long Island New York

She is a gorgeous looking child and you captured her very well. Nice work.

buddah17 Loc: The Bahamas

I think that there is a general "over analysis" of this image by the group. (I know that you did ask for it...)
I will leave the technical stuff for them...
In my humble opinion, I think that it is a VERY nice image of a VERY nice subject..
I would suggest that you make a few duplicate images of the photo and play around with it in Photoshop
(I.E. HDR, Filters, Contrast, separate colors manipulation.. etc..)
PLUS it's more fun doing that, rather than wondering if the "left eye" is a hair out of focus!
(Unless you are making a GIANT billboard!)

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

The focus looks to be dead on. If you wanted, you could have f/stopped down a little to increase your depth of field (focus area). However, the focus is perfect on the eyes and that is what you strive for.

After seeing the second photo, it is still near perfect.. Again, the ONLY thing that MIGHT have made a difference was to stop down to increase the DOF.... and that is splitting hairs. I generally bracket a couple of those to experiment.

Sassenach Loc: Tennessee

Thank you for the advice! I appreciate the critique & will learn from it.