Beginner's Guide to Portraits

[jedidjab]

Hi all,

Ok i've been playing around with my G1 for the last hour or so trying to take a nice portrait shot. I've read on a few sites that the key to blurring the background is to have a lower f-stop (2.8 or so) and a shutter speed of 1/250. After trying to set the G1 to this in Manual mode, everything appears quite dark on the LCD and then extremely bright when the picture is taken and the flash goes off :)

Could someone perhaps submit some steps about how i go about taking a good portrait picture?

Thanks in advance,
Jedidja

[Pekka]

Hi Jedidja,

The big aperture (= small f number) is good, but shutter speed has less to do how your portraits look. Zooming in is more important, it gives you some background blur. Macro mode zoomed in gives even more blur, but it needs some practice to get the focus right. Selecting the background is important - there should be a lot of distance between subject and background for optimal blur.

So, I'd suggest something like:

a) If you use flash and subject looks good in available light, put camera in Tv mode and speed 1/30-1/50. If you have external flash bounce it from a white surface (e.g. up 70 degrees and left 70 degrees)
b) put on spot metering
c) Zoom in fully and back up so that the composition is not too tight. Spot meter from the eyes or the edge of a cheek and press shutter half way.
d) wait for a right moment and squeeze shutter down gently all the way.

Pekka
http://studio-on-the.net/photography/G1/

[jedidjab]

Thanks for the advice :) That combined with some answers from the newsgroups really helped - I think my main problem was that my subject was too close to the background so that's why they were all clear.

On the bright side, I tried out the stitch feature on the G1 last night and got it working really well with hardly any effort! Looking forward to learning more about photography and this camera...

Thanks,
Jedidja

[n9505605]

You might also have to play around with the shutter speed to allow more light into the lens if you use the zoom to get it properly expose.

Is this an in-door portraits or out-door? I personally prefer to use natural light when it comes to photography... but setting up yourself with a studio type of lighting will definitely create a greater effect on your photo. more hollywood feel.

regards,
Boshala