Taking a great portrait is more than pointing a camera towards a person’s face. There is posing, lighting, and many camera settings to get correct. This article takes you through how to take a portrait that you will be happy with.
Tips For Taking a Good Portrait
Using good light for a portrait A good portrait should have plenty of light from the front or side of the face and side of the body, not one eye, or only the right side of the face or the other side of the body. This way, you can adjust how strong the light is to best show your subject’s features.
Make sure there are no shadows in the body or background. The key to a successful portrait is to make sure there are no shadows, streaks, or harshness to your face or body. This will make sure you get the best overall image. Avoid a sharp photo or too much contrast.
The best photo to shoot is one that has good detail with not much contrast. Once you have a few, you could get started on Instagram or open a photo business.
Camera Settings
The camera settings you need to set to take a great portrait are: Focal length – 5 to 8mm is a good range to shoot with. You can get away with a 100mm focal length on a full-frame camera or a 100mm focal length on a crop-sensor camera.
Remember, a wide-angle lens will make your subject look shorter, so try and stick within this range. This is because the wider the angle, the more distortion will be at the frame’s sides.
ISO – Now that you have a focal length and an ISO, you can adjust your camera accordingly to get the best light possible. The optimal ISO should be around 100. Experiment with different ISO as this can make a huge difference to the quality of your images.
Lighting
Many people seem to have a preference for the warmth of daylight. This is fine, and if you have a well-lit room or environment, you will have a great portrait. But I would like to focus on your surroundings.
When it comes to lighting, we want to light our subject as well as our environment. The first thing to note is there is always a balance to be had in every situation. There is a great story of shooting a wedding in a graveyard. The bride and groom were having a small look round and accidentally broke a statue.
This started a debate at the wedding party regarding what would be more important: the breakable statue or the big flash in the newlyweds’ face.
Posing
Posing your subject is probably the first thing you need to do when taking a portrait. First of all, ensure you have the right subject. Is your subject tall and thin? Does she have dark hair and pale skin? Is he straight with a long nose and dark hair? Is the large and male with green eyes? Take a look at stock photography ideas and websites to get a sense of what portrait styles are popular.
If they are not the right sort of person for your photographic purposes, you might be better off taking portraits from an unrelated perspective. Exposure and White Balance Next, it is vital that the subject’s skin is white. Use the camera’s metering or, if necessary, use the camera’s exposure mode to adjust the color balance, using either a Minolta camera or using the camera’s autofocus as it will adjust exposure automatically.
Next, select the right white balance using the camera’s white balance menu.
Conclusion
It is always best to take a few test shots to give yourself the confidence to use a particular lighting setting or manual control. It will give you the confidence to go out and start shooting. Even if you have the worst luck with light, you will start to get lucky in time.
There is no better way to learn how to take a portrait than to practice with a model. Try to shoot every day if possible, even when there is no model insight. Don’t get frustrated if you don’t get the shot.
If you work with a friend, you will be both forced to communicate and help each other. Don’t be afraid to bounce ideas off a friend when something isn’t going right or a whole different approach is needed. You can always change the camera angle.
Taking a great portrait is more than pointing a camera towards a person’s face. There is posing, lighting, and many camera settings to get correct. This article takes you through how to take a portrait that you will be happy with.