How To Take Better Portraits
Taking portrait pictures are natural for most people. We do it all the time when we go out with friends and family. But most of the simple things are overlooked when shooting. You either end up with some blurry or under-exposed photos. You blame the camera before you blame yourself for not knowing how to set your camera properly.
With this tutorial, you will learn some simple ways for better portrait pictures.
Table of Contents:
- Check Your Surroundings
- Lighting Is Key
- Check Your Camera Settings
- Zoom In When You Can
- Keep The Eyes Sharp
- Be Creative
Check Your Surroundings
Always check your surroundings for any weird objects or weird strangers that may be lurking in the background! Pick up any trash or things that are around your shooting area.
If shooting in a crowded environment, wait for people to pass by. You can also implement them in your shot by blurring them out by either using a large aperture or the slow shutter technique.
Move around your subject while shooting and don’t forget to turn around for more backdrop options.
Lighting Is Key
Lighting is your bestfriend in photography. It will always be. Without light, there is no photo to take. So with that said, always keep lighting in the back of your mind.
When shooting outdoors, avoid sharp lights. They say the best time to take photos are during the early hours of sunrise and a couple hours before sunset. This time period is also called the “Golden Hour” where the sun emits a softer light due to being further away from the Earth’s atmosphere. Try to plan your shoot around these hours.
If you still want to shoot when the sun is at highest point, then shade your subject carefully. Either find spots under trees or use a shoot through umbrella to shade your subject. You are most likely going to need an assistant if you are going to use an umbrella.
Shooting when its overcast isn’t that bad either. The clouds act like a giant softbox and does a pretty good job diffusing the sunlight. Keep an eye on where the sun is. Even though the sun is still behind the clouds, it could peak out for a second and can cause darker exposure on your subject. When this happens, turn the flash ON for fill-flash.
The trick to using the flash for fill is to step it down a couple stops. You don’t need that much flash power otherwise your photos will be overexposed. If available, turn on the High Speed Sync on your flash.
Check Your Camera Settings
If you’re shooting with a point-and-shoot camera, make sure you are on Portrait mode (it’s the face icon). What that does is sets your camera by using the largest aperture your camera can handle.
If you’re shooting with a D-SLR, shooting in AV mode and choose a large aperture (f5.6 0r lower).
Aperture:
Most photography sites will recommend using the largest aperture that your lens can provide. I don’t fully agree with this. Review your distance and your angle from your subject. Is the subject slightly angled from the camera? If so, using such a large aperture will cost the farther eye to be blurry. This is due to a shallow Depth of Field (DOF). Use an f-stop that is 2-3 stops higher.
Shot at f5.0 at 100mm. If a smaller aperture (6.3 or 8.0) was used even at a slight angle shot, the baby’s right eye would’ve been as sharp as her left eye.ISO:
When shooting outdoors, you can keep your ISO at the lowest value. When it is a bit cloudy, then adjust the ISO accordingly.
When shooting indoors and you don’t have that much light to rely on, adjust your ISO at around 800 or higher.
To learn more about ISO, check out the ISO Settings article in Digital Photography.
Picture taken with ISO 800 and a larger aperture. The higher ISO enables your camera to let in more light thus causing the background to saturate. The larger aperture made everything from his ear to the back blurry making a nice Bokeh!Zoom in When You Can
If you are shooting with a zoom lens, I recommend shooting at its largest focal length. Get close to your subject and zoom in as much as you can. What this does is blur your background and puts an emphasis to your subject even more. This is great especially your lens doesn’t support larger apertures such as f2.8.
NOTE: Be careful with your zoom range if you are using a faster lens. If you’re shooting with a fast lens at its largest focal length AND at its largest aperture, your DOF will be VERY shallow! Definitely keep this in mind when shooting subjects with their faces angled to the camera. You don’t want one eye sharp and the other blurry.
Image shown right: Taken with a larger focal length (160mm+) to emphasize main subject and blur the background even more.)Keep The Eyes Sharp
When you are ready to take the shot, always focus on your subject’s eye, then recompose your shot.
When using larger aperture, I tend use the center AF point on my camera and I just recompose my shot after. When recomposing, only move the camera up, down, left, or right. If you move backward or forward, you will need to refocus your shot.
NOTE: Remember when your subject’s face is slightly angled, make sure to use a smaller aperture (i.e. f5.6). This will keep the farthest eye sharp as well.
Image shown right: Shot using the center AF point and recomposed for better composition.Be Creative
I’m not a fan of poses and I try to capture those fun moments candidly. Try unusual angles and out of the ordinary compositions. Think outside the box.
If shooting indoors, take advantage of all the different color ambient lighting. Think how you can incorporate those lights in your shot. Perhaps have your subject stand a few feet away from it and use one of the blur techniques for those lights. Blur it enough that the lights look very abstract.
You’re probably used to shooting either at a landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical) mode. Try rotating your camera at a 45 degree angle when shooting. Put the Rules of Thirds in the back of your mind for now and compose some shots using odd angles.
Image shown right: The lights on the background are actually just huge lamps behind a shoji screen doors. Blurred enough that it looks nothing like it.Additional Information
Be sure to check out my Different Techniques of Skin Softening article.
For any portrait work, check out our Portrait Portfolio.
