January 10, 2008
Whether for graduation, a wedding, or your e-harmony account taking a professional quality portrait at home is easy and cheap. This guide will cover lighting, background, clothes, make up and various other tricks to make it possible to get the “wow” factor of a professional, at home. Instead of recommending expensive products, I will be giving you examples of household items that make great photographic aids. If you already have a camera then nothing in this how to guide for shooting portraits at home should cost you a thing… …continue reading How to: Portraits at home
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January 3, 2008
As an aspiring photojournalist I’m very aware of the necessary skill of shooting available light. There are, however, a plethora of situations where a flash is completely acceptable. In fact, almost any shot can benefit from some additional light source. Think of it as shooting available light, just making more light available.
Flash can be used to:
- make a scene more dramatic
- improve color
- Enhance detail
- preserve exposure
- fill flash
- help with back lighting
…continue reading Guide to Flash in Digital Photography
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December 12, 2007
Portrait photography is one of the more important techniques for someone to master. Whether you are looking to go into photojournalism, fashion, wedding photography, or you are picking up photography as a new hobby, mastering a portrait is sure to create that “wow” factor. In this post we’re going to go over a few details: lenses, depth of field, lighting, composition, and subject interaction.
Subject Interaction
Subject interaction is one of the key elements to a great portrait. Nothing makes a portrait look worse than a fake or non-existent smile. By using a few of the following techniques you will be able to vastly improve your shots. Remember, you’re aim is to make your subject feel comfortable. One way to make sure they’re comfortable is take a look at your setup. If you aren’t using a flash, don’t have an external flash unit. If you don’t need your huge superzoom don’t use it. Basically, make your setup seem like it’s “less than,” this way the subject won’t get as nervous. Next, and the most important is to use your mouth. You must talk to the subject! How would you react if your doctor suddenly got silent? Well, as a photographer you are “analyzing” the subject as a doctor analyzes his patients, if you just keep talking you will get more natural expressions from your subject. Be careful not to keep saying “great, beautiful, wonderful…” because subjects will catch on that you are just blathering. Try to actually carry a conversation, when the subject does something good interrupt yourself and say “great.”
Depth of field, and Bokeh:
Depth of field or DOF is often one of the factors that can truly bring a portrait to life. Depth of field is roughly defined as the amount of the image that appears in focus, it is dependent on the aperture that the portrait is shot at. By shooting with a larger (lower F number) aperture lens you create a more narrow depth of field, thus less of the image is sharp. At first it seems like you’d never want to intentionally make your shots less sharp. But go take a look at some of the best portraits, they all have areas that are intentionally less sharp. One common use for a shallow depth of field is to limit the depth of field to just around the eyes. This makes the eyes appear very sharp, thus making them “pop” from the person’s face.
Bokeh is another principal similar to depth of field. Bokeh is how blurry the out of focus regions of a shot are. Bokeh is achieved by a few methods which may be combined for best results: long lens, distance between subject and the background, and a wide aperture. By using a wide aperture, telephoto lens and placing the subject far away from the background you will achieve the best bokeh. It’s not always nesecarry to go overboard, we’ll get to that in a minute.
Your Setup:
Now that we’ve covered DOF and Bokeh you’re probably about to go grab the longest, widest aperture lens you can afford. Well lets not go overboard, you’ll almost never need anything greater than 200mm for a portrait, in fact usually 75-105mm is a good length for a lens. Remember that on most digital cameras there is a 1.5 or 1.6 times crop factor, so a 50mm lens is effectively a 75mm lens and a 70mm is a 105mm. I personally use a 28-75mm F2.8 for most of my portraiture because it is a relatively small lens with a wide aperture. The reason why I mention that it is a relatively small lens is that it’s important not to intimidate your subject. I can remember taking a casual shot of my girlfriend with an 80-210mm f2.8, just the sheer size of the front element made her nervous. One other word of warning, the wider aperture lens you buy, the more expensive it will be. I usually stay away from third party manufactured lenses, but I will reccomend the Tamrom 28-75mm F2.8, it can be found in both Nikon and Cannon mounts. I found mine for a little over $200.
If natural light doesn’t work well for your shot, don’t be afraid to use flash. Again try to stay as “little” as possible. If you just need a little, short range fill, try using the build in flash. Don’t use a lead-acid battery powered Metz if you can get by with a small hot shoe flash etc. Also, unless you are just using flash as fill do not point your flash directly at the subject. Always try to bounce it, preferably off of a white ceiling or wall. Bounced flash gives a much more natural look to the portrait. Take time to make sure that your flash isn’t casting any obvious harsh shadows. Try and use the lowest power you can to give yourself greater recycle time.
Composition:
This is by far the hardest aspect to learn in portrait photography. Even if you have a professional model, you as a photographer need to figure out how to compose him/her into the shot. Although this aspect is mainly learned through trail and error there are some basic principals to keep in mind:
Never shoot from below: it’s very rare that you want to be below eye-level with your model. Generally shooting even from slightly below your model with yield bad results, harsh shadows, appearance of flared nostrils etc.
Watch out for the background: though proper exposure can help to mask or blur the background (heavy bokeh) always be aware of how distracting the background is. Maybe there is a harsh light, a pole that appears to come out of the subject’s head? On the same token, try to pick backgrounds that help build a mood, story or awareness. If you have a good background don’t be afraid to stop down your aperture (increase the f number) to sharpen it a bit. (I never go above F8 for portraits. I usually stay between f2 and f4.)
Positioning: Try positioning your model in different parts of the frame. Not every shot needs to be taken dead on, dead center etc. One technique which helps to add depth to the portrait is to have the subject slightly off center looking the opposite direction. (Model is a little to the left, looking to the right.) By having the model look “across” the frame you’ve instantly increased the depth of the shot. Don’t be afraid to ask your model to look different directions, just play around.
So I know this post was fairly lengthy but I tried to at least touch on everything that might be important. I’ll be going into more detail on certain sections in later posts. For now that should keep you busy. Please, if you have any questions or just want to let me know you liked the article use the comments section below.
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