Head pose estimation has been considered an important and challenging task in computer vision. In this paper we propose a novel method to estimate head pose based on a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) for 2D face images. We design an effective and simple method to roughly crop the face from the input image, maintaining the individual-relative facial features ratio. The method can be used in various poses. Then two convolutional neural networks are set up to train the head pose classifi er and then compared with each other. The simpler one has six layers. It performs well on seven yaw poses but is somewhat unsatisfactory when mixed in two pitch poses. The other has eight layers and more pixels in input layers. It has better performance on more poses and more training samples. Before training the network, two reasonable strategies including shift and zoom are executed to prepare training samples. Finally, feature extraction fi lters are optimized together with the weight of the classifi cation component through training, to minimize the classifi cation error. Our method has been evaluated on the CAS-PEAL-R1, CMU PIE, and CUBIC FacePix databases. It has better performance than state-of-the-art methods for head pose estimation.