The invention provides a picture obtaining method based on face identification, is applied to a mobile terminal provided with a zooming pick-up head, and belongs to the technical field of a computer, for solving the problem of low shooting operation efficiency caused by a manual mode of focusing a pick-up head to a certain face to be shot in the prior art. The method comprises the following steps: detecting a face in a shooting preview image; according to a face feature in a preset object face image, identifying an object face from the detected face; and focusing on the successfully identified object face and performing shooting. According to the invention, through identifying the object face and then controlling the pick-up head to be focused on the successfully identified object face for shooting, in the shooting process of the mobile terminal, focusing on the preset object face can be automatically realized, manual focusing is unnecessary, the shooting efficiency is improved, and at the same time, user experience of the mobile terminal during shooting is improved.