Taking Portraits - some help and advice please

[Woody]

Guy's,
Have been asked by my parents to take a couple of portrait shots of them. It turns out that one of my Mom's friends has asked for photographs of all her friends for her Birthday - which I though was a pretty cool idea.
Anyway, I seem to have digressed - my problem is that I ain't very good at the portraity/people stuff, more cars and motor sport type stuff......
I've just treated my self (xmas prezzie) to one of these



A canon 430EX Speedlite, but my other kit is what I've already got, so that'll be a 300D and the 18-55 kit lens, and a 70-300 lens.

As I don't have any studio lights I'm going to be relying on natural light and a couple of fluorescent desk lamps that I use for my light tent.

How am I best going to achieve a decent standard?

I thought I could use a sheet infront of the window as a back drop and light from either side and and use the flash - is this going to work? or should I stay away from the sheet infront of the window idea and just use the lights and flash?

Any thoughts/ideas/advice really appreciated.

Chris

[2jamesl]

Im not sure about all of the lighting etc but as a random couple of points, i would recommend black and whites for the majority, obviously take them in colour and then work with channels in photoshop. People are fussy with pictures of themselves but black and white seems to keep blemishes to a minimum, and low aperture is a must for for portraits

Edited by 2jamesl on Tuesday 1st January 21:27

[DanH]

f11 and 85-105mm are what my books say.

[Simpo Two]

If you're not sure about indoor lighting how about finding a nice location/s outdoors and using fill flash? A reasonably large aperture lens will blur the background nicely.

Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 1st January 21:42

[Andy M]

DanH said:

f11 and 85-105mm are what my books say.

On a 1.6x crop body like the 300D you'll be looking at between 50mm - 65mm. I'd personally be aiming to shoot between f5.6 - f8 dependent on the pose/location/setting etc in order to blur the background a little.

I'd not bother with the flash - I personally hate the things, but that's mostly to do with me being too lazy/stupid to learn how to properly use one.

Natural light is best IMO, and placing the subject near a south facing window in the hour after sunrise/before sunset can give some pleasing results. These shots below weren't planned, on each occasion I've tripped over good light and been lucky enough to have an understanding missus who'd pose for me.

One of my first attempts, I should have gotten in tighter:






I'd try not to have staid poses, in fact, I'd be trying to get your parents laughing so that you could get some nice natural smiley shots.

Finally, try to get in close - a common mistake is to stand too far back and have the subject 'lost' in the photo.

Hope this helps

Edited by Andy M on Tuesday 1st January 22:38

[DanH]

Andy M said:

DanH said:

f11 and 85-105mm are what my books say.

On a 1.6x crop body like the 300D you'll be looking at between 50mm - 65mm. I'd personally be aiming to shoot between f5.6 - f8 dependent on the pose/location/setting etc in order to blur the background a little.

That all makes good sense transferring to a cropped sensor and sounds roughly equivalent. Is there a rule for how many stops difference you need to go digital to get the same depth of field as a full frame sensor?

[m12_nathan]

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

[DanH]

m12_nathan said:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I just want someone to say 2 stops less aperture! That link makes my brain hurt.

[Altrezia]

I'm no expert, but from what I've read, it's important to try and get the eyes in focus.

[ssray]

I have always found using a longer lens than you thought and giving you subject a bit of breathing space,the 180mm was fab on my rb67 or around 125ish on 35mm.

If you must use flash turn it down and bounce it off of white card or get a reflector from calumet etc.

Booze? if they are not pros and get embarresed,it worked for me the first `model` shot i did with some girls at work, i wont mention that one of them chucked up over her mum and blamed a bad kebab, also time allow yourself some and also the people you are taking pics of.

relax.

good luck

ray

[tog]

DanH said:

f11 and 85-105mm are what my books say.

No! Wide open aperture is what you need for portraits! The eyes have it!

[neilr]

That Depth of Field chart link is somewhat misleading (to say the least).

Just beause a sensor is smaller that 35mm doesn't mean you have greater dof. Merely greater APPARENT dof becuase of the crop into the center of the image circle. perhaps similar to actually having greater DOF in cetain situations, yet crucially different.


WHat im saying is that if a given lens/distance to subject/f-stop combo has xyz-DOF on a 35mm Nikon F5(for example) then a cropped sensor D2x with the same lens/distance to subject/f-stop combo will have the same DOF. (quite obviousley).

Edited by neilr on Thursday 3rd January 01:05

[V6GTO]

DanH said:

m12_nathan said:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I just want someone to say 2 stops less aperture! That link makes my brain hurt.

Dan mate,
You're not shooting film so take shots at f4, f5.6, f8, f11 and f16 and pick the best one when you can compare them on screen.

M.

[DanH]

tog said:

DanH said:

f11 and 85-105mm are what my books say.

No! Wide open aperture is what you need for portraits! The eyes have it!

To be fair the book was referring to studio conditions with a neutral background rather than trying to separate from distraction behind the subject. He went on to say go wide if shooting outdoors.

I'm still not sure whether the bloke selected those numbers based on a cropped sensor or not though. The book says he shoots with a d2x so one might think he was.

[Fordo]

I'm not expert, but in my limited experience i'd recommend the following:

Wide aperture, but always check your focus. if the eyes arent in focus, bin it and take another.

If you can, get some light on the hair- either from a light behind shining down, or from bouning the flash. A little back light on the hair or shoulders really makes the subject stand out.

If you can, i'd recommend picking up a relector and a tripod to position it. They're great for bouncing your flash to act as a fill light

[Woody]

Thanks for the advice guy's.
Will give i few of the ideas a shot - and as it's digital I'll try varying the aperture settings.
Will post the results up when I've done them - hopefully this weekend.
Chris