What focus options on a6000 shooting portraits

[lance70]

Hello..I recently purchased a Sony a6000 and mainly shoot indoor portraits with strobes. Whats the best focus setting to get the most out of this camera? I use a D800 currently and right now I have my Sony setup the same way...single point focus, I focus on the eye and then recompose...but I notice photographers like Jason Lanier who shoot so casual from the back screen....

[Username]

MF and Live View [Nikon, Sony, et al], 

with MF magnifier at maximum. Check 

both eyes and stop down as necessary. 

This is much easier with an adapted MF 

lens with a focusing scale. 

  

Always move the focus zone across the 

screen [or the SLR finder if you use that] 

to match the desired detail on the subject. 

If you focus in center and recompose, it 

may result in focus shift error [MF or AF].

[Guest Jaf-Photo]

I used to shoot Canon so I am familiar with the focus and recompose technique. The drawback is obvious, you're always shifting the plane of focus, which is a bummer at large apertures.

 

But you can ditch that with Sony.

 

I would strongly suggest that you use face detect and eye autofocus. Face detect works best stopped down, otherwise it might put the eyes slightly out of focus.

[tinplater]

Face detect and eye autofocus are like little Sony miracles.  Interestingly it will not recognize the eye of my dog, so apparently trained to only latch onto the human eye.  Haven't tried it at the zoo....I learned to use this feature by googling up face under "images" and it can really find a tiny human eye.