Portrait photography away – frederikboving

Portrait Photography Away – Check list for beginners (part 2)

Photographers often question their current gear and is constantly scanning the market for better options with more advanced features. There is often no need for that. Your good old trusty DSLR will do just fine!

Gear acquisition syndrome (GAS) is a common disease amongst photographers.

Yes, a more modern camera may have more megapixels and face recognition and the like, but I would suggest that you put these considerations to a side and focus on getting to know your camera. Not that you need to know and understand each and every detail about the deepest menu system, but more the basics related to focus and exposure. Here I will take you through some of the important aspects of your camera and gear.

Megapixels

How many megapixels do you need as a portrait photographer? Not many. I have shot with my trusty old Nikon D700, and it is a 12megapixel camera, and used the files to print in size 70 x 100 cm and the client was happy as can be. The thing is, the larger you print, the larger the viewing distance.

If you see a large print on a wall, your natural reaction is to take a step back to allow you to take it all in. Otherwise you will be viewing the image as you would a tennis match – your eyes would go back and forth, and most don’t do that, but take a step back. If you pass a billboard, try to go up close. You will see that the resolution is very low (= looks horrible!), as it is intended to be viewed from far away.

The most common reason for wanting a lot of megapixels is to be able to crop, but if you frame your images carefully, then cropping should not be necessary. When the first digital cameras came out, they had only about 8 megapixels, but it was still amazing images the pros could produce. So don’t worry about the number of megapixels. Worry about filling the frame with your subject, and you are good to go.

Sensor size

Another common worry amongst photographers is choosing between APS-C and full frame. There are differences, granted, and you need less light with a full frame camera. But modern sensors (i.e. produced within the last 15 years) are so good that I find the difference to be negligible. You can shoot amazing images also with APS-C. So I would not worry about the sensor size.

File format

Your camera most likely offers different file formats – the one with most information is RAW and that is the format I recommend. You will get the most flexibility and headroom if you shoot raw. But there is a downside of course, and that is the space it requires both on your memory card and your computer.

You can do fine with say a JPG file, but you cannot recover so many details from the shadows or highlights if you need to, when your exposure is a bit off or the dynamic range of the scene stresses the dynamic range of the camera. So it is a balance between the need for post processing flexibility and saving disc space. Your call. My suggestion is to go for the flexibility and then have sufficient storage to accommodate the raw format.

Exposure parameters

Exposure is obviously important. But with digital photography and raw file formats, I would say less so now than in the film days. You can do a lot of adjustments to exposure in post when you shoot raw, and also you can preview the images on the camera’s rear LCD, along with a histogram. So if your exposure is off, then the options for learning about this while shooting are many.

But, there are 3 vital parameters you need to work with when we are talking exposure: ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

Your camera comes with a base ISO value, typically 100 or 200. From here you can turn up the volume and the higher ISO, the less light the camera needs to expose correct, all things being equal. The down side is that you will pay a price in terms of grainy images and washed out colours if you go too high on the ISO.

You can test this with your specific camera model, but I would stay below or at ISO 2000 as the limit. Different cameras have different limits to when the images start to turn bad, so give it a try with your camera model and see where the pain point starts to set in and stay well below that.

Auto ISO can be a great help. It means that the camera sets the ISO automatically to give the correct exposure. Typically you can limit the ISO so the camera will not go over a certain value – I recommend that you set this limit so you are sure not to come home with grainy images. And then I recommend that you switch Auto ISO on – it gives a bit more headroom for the shutter speed and aperture.

Shutter speed

Speaking of shutter speed, the reciprocal rule says that you should not go slower than the reciprocal value of your focal length. So if you are shooting at 85mm, then 1/85th of a second is the slowest you can go. Modern cameras with vibration reduction in both lens and camera have moved these limits and allow much slower shutter speeds, but if you have a good old DSLR with no vibration reduction, then the reciprocal rule is a good guide.

Aperture

If you ask me, aperture is the most important parameter in the exposure settings, as it dictates the depth of field. The more closed down the aperture is (higher f-stop numbers) the more depth of field (DOF) you get. And depth of field can be a life saver if you don’t manage to get the focus just right – the DOF introduces a “forgiveness” factor that can save you from minor misses on focus.

Google a depth of field calculator app and load it into your smartphone. Put in the parameter from your camera and the settings you plan to use and see what DOF you get. I prefer to have a DOF of at least 30-40 cm, so that when I focus on the eyer, the person in focus is sharp front to back. Notice that even though the aperture has a big influence on the DOF, the distance to the subject has even more. So getting some space between you and the subject can be absolutely vital for getting the DOF you want.

Exposure modes

Your camera will have several exposure modes: PASM, meaning program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual. To allow you to focus on the client and the shoot, I would stay clear of manual mode unless you are very comfortable with keeping an eye on the light meter. Aperture priority means that you are the boss when it comes to the aperture, and the camera selects the shutter speed. For shutter priority it is the other way around. Program mode means that the camera sets both the aperture and the shutter speed – this is the mode where you have less control.

Finally, many cameras also have a Auto mode. It is the same as program mode, but in addition the camera has pre-selected and locked a number of other values so it is in “point and shoot” mode.

I typically shoot in aperture priority to control the DOF, and the camera then selects the shutter speed. And in addition I switch on auto ISO, so the camera has to variables to play with to get the exposure right. But I always try to keep an eye on the shutter speed, to make sure it does not get too slow.

Compensation

Your camera probably has an exposure compensation button. It typically sits close to the shutter release button and has a +/- sign. If you push that button, your can use the front or rear command dials to set the exposure compensation in stops of light.

It can be very useful if you don’t agree to the cameras automated metering, i.e. you find that it systematically exposes to much or too little, or you just want to protect the highlights. The adjustment of the automated exposure can be really useful, but be careful when you have it activated – you may forget it is on! Keep an eye out for the metering scale – it will show if you have compensation turned on.

Metering modes

Your camera probably offers a number of metering modes. The most automated and advanced is named matrix or weighted metering. That is the one I would recommend you to use.

For portrait there is an alternative to consider and that is the center weighted mode. It will prioritize metering according to the amount of light in the center of the frame. This can be useful if you are shooting against a very bright background like at white backdrop.

No matter which mode you choose, it will not change the amount of ambient light- only the way the camera interprets the light.

Shake

You don’t want shake or movement. Camera shake is when the camera is moved while the shutter is pen. Movement is when the subject moves while the shutter is open. The slower the shutter speed, the bigger the risk of shake and movement there is.

Shake and movement is not what you want in portrait photography. You can use it creatively for some images, but my guess is that for the most part your client would like to have images that are not blurred. And shake and movement will look blurred. Many mistake images with blur for being out of focus, but the cause is different.

A tripod is a good way to mitigate camera shake. But it does take up space in your backpack, and although modern tripods comes in carbon versions, there is still a weight penalty to be paid. If you are to do 100 corporate headshots, then you definitely want the camera to be on a tripod to make sure you get exactly the same angle and position for each image (along with a cross on the floor to indicate where the employee is to stand).

When we are on the subject of tripods: consider to get an l-bracket. It makes shooting in portrait mode so much easier without tipping the balance of your camera on the tripod.

White balance

Your camera probably has a button named “WB” or a quick menu where you can set the white balance. The white balance is something camera producers generally try to make accessible easily.

Don’t mix light sources with different colour temperatures – it is a safe route to trouble, unless you shoot black and white!

You will probably find that your camera offers a lot of options for white balance settings. Don’t worry and put the camera in automatic mode. Modern cameras have an excellent white balance automatic system, and you can always tweak the white balance in post if you are not happy with the chosen Kelvin value!

However, be careful not to mix two colour temperatures! I once photographed a birthday where the party was held inside (candescent light) but there were some very big windows also that contributed with a lot of natural light (sun). When I shot people standing close to the window or even worse: with the window as a backdrop, I got two different colour temperatures mixed! The result: Either their skin tone looked absolutely horrible and the room colours looked ok, or their skin tone looked natural and the room had the most weird colours! That taught me to not mix colour temperatures!

Focus settings

Your camera probably has a lot of options for setting focus, and with mirrorless cameras it has gotten a bit more complicated adding face recognition and even recognition of animal faces! So many choices!

My advice is: shoot with a focus option where you control what the camera selects to focus on. In auto focus mode, you have no control of what the camera focuses on, and it will typically select whatever is the closest to the camera. But that my not be what you want it to focus on.

I prefer a low tech option that gives me control. So I usually shoot with a small focus point that I can move around with the command wheel on the rear of my camera. If you don’t have time to move the focus point around, then move the camera so the focus point is on the eye of your subject, half press the shutter to lock focus, recompose (i.e. move the camera so you get the framing you want) and then press the shutter fully to take the picture. When you’ve done this a few times, it quickly becomes second nature.

Portrait Photography Away – Check list for beginners (part 1)

Portrait photography away from home is a brutal game if you ask me. Not only do you have to be ready with the gear and your skills lined up, but you also have to adjust to the lighting conditions and the physical location the client has chosen. The parameters in play are many more than if you ask the client to show up in your studio where you know exactly what backdrops to choose from and where the flashes are positioned.

This little checklist is intended for you if you are new to the task of shooting (digital) portraits away from home. A getting started guide, if you like. As your experience grows, you may find that you grow out of the advice given here, but that is as it should be. The intention is to get you going, not to limit you as your skills and experience grows.

You are not alone

If you are a photographer and not super comfortable with all the buttons and dials on your camera, then here is a little secret: you are not alone! Many photographers are not engineers but originate from a more creative line of business, and hence the many technical aspects of photography is either not of interest or not necessary to get the job done. The most important thing is that you are comfortable with the fact that you don’t need to know all corners of your camera. Or to say it another way: it is OK to be uncomfortable with the fact that your are uncomfortable with some buttons on the camera. You can get the job done still.

Respect your own role

You have been hired to do a job. To be successful in that job, you sometimes have to instruct and direct the client. Maybe they need to adjust the hairdo, bend an arm a little more, the dress folds in a way you don’t want it to, etc. Make sure you are the boss when it comes to the photography work.

The client may be tired and want to move on, they don’t want to do as you say, etc. Here you need to take charge and not cave in: Your success does not come randomly, but through carefully managing the shooting process, and that entails directing the client and being the boss when needed. Be polite and friendly of course, but do stand your ground. The better you are at this, the better results and the happier clients.

Take time to talk to the client during the shoot. Not everyone is comfortable in front of the camera, and then your job is the help them. You can try different approaches like asking an open ended question or cracking a joke – both helps them being less self aware. Or involve them in the shoot and ask them to hold a reflector, if that can stay out of the frame. But first and foremost: read the person you are photographing and adjust your instructions accordingly to create the best atmosphere possible.

Agreed

To define your role, an agreement in writing is a must. It does not have to be very long or in the shape of a formal contract, but an e-mail to agree terms and conditions along with the scope of the assignment is mandatory if you ask me. Many photographers are not comfortable with this part, but it will come back and bite you if you do not lock the scope of the assignment with some sort of written agreement. And define what you plan to charge.

The important is that you have a good understanding of what the client wants to achieve and that expectations are managed on both sides. So if you are hired to shoot Adam at his 18th year birthday, then that is the job. Not to shoot Adam’s girlfriend or his parents. Use the scope definition as a central tool in managing the expectations. And also define who owns the images and if example copies can be used in your marketing or not.

If you plan to deliver the images on a memory stick and this is defined in the agreement, then it should be clear to everyone that ordering 10 printed copies of one of the images will be charged separately. Having a list of prices for additional services (such as printing) can help manage expectations.

Pricing is very individual per country and hence difficult to be specific about, but make sure you don’t sell yourself cheap. Just because it is easy for you to shoot 10 additional images does not mean it is easy for anyone. When you hire someone to paint your living room, it may be easy for that person to do the job because they have the skills and the training. But the value add for you is that you get the painting done with a very capable person that can paint much better than you will ever be able to do. Or find the time to do it. And there is the value, right? Look at your own profession the same way – your skillset did not come easy and there is a lot of value add from hiring a pro photographer.

Work backwards

When I was new to photography, I never gave the end result a thought. I was more worried about framing, light, exposure, etc. And that is also important. But it can be valuable to know how the digital images are going to be applied. There is a huge difference if the image is going to be posted on instagram in a 1:1 format, shared on a UHD TV set in 16:9 format or printed huge in 3:2 format to hang in a hallway somewhere.

When I shoot images that I know are going to be cropped to 16:9, then I often go a bit wider in my framing to allow the top and the bottom of the image to be cropped in order to fit the 16:9 format that I often use. Had I not zoomed out a bit, then I would be facing some difficult cropping choices. So beginning with the end in mind is a good exercise.

When shooting portraits, you may find that to fill the frame the best way, you may need to turn your camera 90 degrees to – well – portrait mode. Hence the name, I guess. But it can make a huge difference how you frame the shot. And if you find that portrait mode works for you, and you shoot with a tripod, then maybe an L-bracket is something you need in your camera bag. This question only came up, because you started thinking the process though.

Mind the background

Your subject is the star or the main actor. You don’t want anything to steal the attention from the star. So mind the background, please. If you study flower portraits or portraits of insects, you will see that the best photographers are very good at selecting backgrounds that do not dominate the subject.

Some photographers love to give their subject props such as flowers, hats, umbrellas or glasses. I am a bit sceptical to this approach. If you think it is the right thing to do, the do it by all means, but please consider if the props start to take focus away from the subject.

One way to make the background less dominating is by making it blurred. This is a common technique amongst photographers, as it makes the subject pop: Razor sharp subject, super blurred background. And it does work. But the price is that you may need to shoot at a shallow depth of field, and then focusing can become more tricky. And in extreme cases, only parts of the subject is in focus. What you can do is to make sure there is much more distance between the subject and the background than there is between the camera and the subject. In this way you can shoot at a middle-of-the-road aperture as f/5.6 and still get a reasonably blurred background.

If you choose say a white wall as a background, be mindful that the light metering system in the camera can be a bit confused. Your camera probably has an option named something like “centre weighed metering” – try that for size and see if it gives better results.

Focal length

If you want to be REALLY bored (say, you can’t fall asleep), try this: Ask two portrait photographers which focal length they prefer. Chances are that they don’t agree and will debate for hours on end. We are in personal preference territory.

One thing is certain: a very wide lens (say 20mm) will not make the subject look attractive, especially if you put the camera right in front of their nose! Whatever is in the middle of the frame will take up a disproportionate size, which of course is funny if you want the clowns red nose to be extra big, but most buying a portrait photographer expects something a little more accommodating.

The classic focal length for portrait is 85mm. It is like buying a Volkswagen Golf – it can hardly go wrong. Others prefer a bit longer lenses like 105mm or 135mm. But it stays in that range. The reason is that 85-135mm gives a natural representation of proportions without compressing the image too much. In other words: it looks natural.

Zoom versus primes is a discussion that started when the earth cooled down. In the old days, it was probably true that primes were sharper than zooms, but a zoom lens today is very, very close to a prime. So close that I doubt you for any practical purposes (other than pixel peeping) will notice the difference. And I do find that my 70-200mm zoom gives me some options to vary the framing via zooming that my 85mm prime does not. But it is very much up to you and your personal preference.

Notice that when I talk focal length here, I refer to the full frame (35mm) focal lengths. If you are shooting with an APS-C camera with a cropped sensor, then you need to multiply the focal length with 1.5 approx. to get to the full frame equivalent. So a 70mm lens on a APS-C camera is the same as a 105mm lens on a full frame camera.

Home

My best advice? Make sure you come home with something. Anything but empty hands. Your clients have put trust in your ability to do the job, and if your memory card goes belly up for some reason, or your camera gets stolen on the train on the way back from the event, then you have zero. Zip. Nada.

It is not funny to tell the clients that the important event wasn’t documented, unfortunately. And how ever good a reason you have, it does not help much. So do everything you can to avoid ending up in that situation. That is my best advice. Even the best composition with wonderful lighting captured with just the right exposure does not help much, if it sits on a memory card you cannot read or in a camera you don’t know where is. So backup, backup and backup.

If you watch some YouTube videos with camera reviews, one of the things many reviewers talk about for hours on end is if the camera has one or two card slots. I did not understand the importance of this in the beginning, but now I do – it’s all about having no single point of failure to ruin your day. If your data is duplicated at the source (= two card slots) then that helps a lot.

But even if you only have one card slot, you can bring a laptop or a storage device to make backups during the shoot. Or even better: to some cloud solution. Even if you have a dual card camera, you may want to do a backup still.

Be mindful that theft is a risk if you e.g. go via transportation shared with others, such as a plane or a train. Many people store their backups the same place as the original and forget that fire and theft will potentially ruin both the original and the backup in one sweep. So be a bit paranoid: make backups during the shoot and split the original and the backup as best you can.

Some older DSLRs allow you to happily shoot away with no memory card installed! There is a little sign on the rear LCD notifying you of this, but in principle you can go all day and shoot without noticing this. Such a grim situation will also be mitigated if you make it a habit to do backups during the shoot.

Procedure

Photography is in the creative genre. Quite opposite to procedure. Agreed. But combining procedure and creativity in my experience is the best way forward. Having worked in procedures you follow loyally allow you to focus on the more creative and fun part, while the more dull and boring part runs on routine. Well worked in routine.

It is not funny to establish these procedures or routines. But it will help you produce the same high standard result on a consistent level. And the difference between a pro and an amateur is exactly the consistency. So establish routines that lay the foundation for success, such as:

Have a checklist for what needs to go in the camera bag and follow that list to the point.
Bring spare batteries fully charged + a charger and a power bank
Bring spare and formatted memory cards that you know work
Test your flashes from home and how they are set-up in groups and channels

The above are just examples. But work on your routines to make sure you take all the unnecessary variables out of the equation. That gives you comfort and surplus to focus on the more fun stuff about photography.

Light

Photography is writing with light, so obviously light is important. If you need to travel carrying as little as possible, chances are that you do not have flashes or video light as an option, let alone light diffusers and stands to hold it all. So you are left with ambient light.

For portrait photography soft light is the preference by most, unless you are doing something very specialised, which I assume is not the case.

Soft light makes the transition from light to dark areas happen gradually rather than the abrupt way that hard light does. If you are standing in the sun on a cloudless summers day around noon, then you will know what hard light looks like!

Soft light is produced with a large light source relative to the size of your subject. So this is why the sun on a cloudless day can produce brutally hard light: it is a very small light source, far far away from your subject. If a cloud obscures the sun, then the cloud serves as a diffuser (and increases the size of the light source) and all of a sudden the light is much softer.

One way to soften ambient light is to put a big white cloth between the light source and the subject. You can do this both outdoor and indoor. The biggest challenge is to find a way to mount the white cloth, but a few pieces of cord and a bit of ingenuity can get you a long way. If this gets to complicated, holding a shoot through umbrella between the light source and the subject is another way of softening the light. Get the umbrella as close to the subject as possible to maximise the effect.

Finally, as simple tool as a reflector can maximise the use of the ambient light. If the light enters from the left, hold the reflector to the right to make the two sides of the face more evenly lit. If it enters from the top, hold the reflector under the chin to balance the light more evenly. You will be surprised how big the effect of such a simple tool can be. If you don’t have a reflector, simply use a white piece of paper or cardboard. A bonus is here that you can ask the subject to hold the reflector and hence be more engaged in the shooting process, which may help some become more relaxed and less self aware.

Continued reading

In part two I talk more about camera settings and the like operational stuff. Thanks for reading this far!

Tag: Portrait photography away