What aperture for portraits?

Sounds like a basic question, but I'm wondering what portrait photographers are usually using.

I'm assuming f/2.8 at the widest with most shots being done at f/5.6 or maybe f/8 to f/11 for groups.

Yes? No?

Depends of what you want to acheive. Do you want a blurred background? Are you in a studio? Are you in front of some stunning background scenery? You could use any aperture, really.

Depends on what lens you are using, what body and mostly your background. In general, the fastest f/stop you have is good for a head shot but sometimes difficult to pull off. Good portraits can be done at any aperture actually. Just don't have too many telephone poles coming out of their heads.

What he said it depends

sometimes, in fact usually, absolute sharpness isnt -necessary-

A lot of times the dreamy slightly soft out of focus look is acceptable

If you are shooting in the studio with a backdrop, you would probably use a smaller aperture for subject sharpness, assuming you have plenty of light or have control of the light. For outdoor portraits, I'd think you would want a larger aperture, because you have less control of the light, and there would be more distractions in the background so you want more background blur and subject separation.

n1as wrote in post #7927135
Sounds like a basic question, but I'm wondering what portrait photographers are usually using.

I'm assuming f/2.8 at the widest with most shots being done at f/5.6 or maybe f/8 to f/11 for groups.

Yes? No?

The central factor in blur and bokeh-related questions is distance that separates your subject from the background. The shortest it is, the faster your lens needs to be in order to achieve blur.

In a small bathroom, I have obtained blurry background at f/2.0 using a 50/1.8, and I got the same kind of blur outdoors, using a 70-200/4 below 100mm, at f/4. In the first example, walls were 4 ft behind my subject and in the 2nd example, a fence and a tree (which came out blurry at f/4) were about 20 ft behind. Blur was basically the same in both cases.

So, there's no rule really. 5.6 and 8 can give you the same amount of blur if what you're trying to blur out is far far away.

My simple rule for sharpness in portraits:

Canon recommends to add sharpen to your RAW files, which I basically always do except for portraits. I shoot portraits in RAW and when I convert to jpeg I don't apply sharpen. I find that the amount of softness induced by RAW is the perfect amount of what's needed in portraiture.

But that's just me. Try it.

n1as wrote in post #7927135
Sounds like a basic question, but I'm wondering what portrait photographers are usually using.

I'm assuming f/2.8 at the widest with most shots being done at f/5.6 or maybe f/8 to f/11 for groups.

Yes? No?

Depends. However, I often shoot at apertures wider than f/2.8:

Canon 5D + 100 / 2 @ f / 2, 1/250, ISO 100

http://www.pbase.com/j​oemama/image/109260444

Like they said, depends on what you are trying to achieve.

I did read a portrait photographers handbook and he said in studio he generally uses f8-f10 for most standard portraits, like senior shots.

OK, so I guess the answers are all over the map. LOL! I should have known better.

I'm specifically thinking of senior portraits and wedding portraits. Bread & butter shots, stuff that sells to Moms & Dads. For that reason, I tend to lean away from the wide open shallow DOF style, but Joe Mama's pics (above) sure make me pause and rethink it all.

n1as wrote in post #7929915
OK, so I guess the answers are all over the map. LOL! I should have known better.

I'm specifically thinking of senior portraits and wedding portraits. Bread & butter shots, stuff that sells to Moms & Dads. For that reason, I tend to lean away from the wide open shallow DOF style, but Joe Mama's pics (above) sure make me pause and rethink it all.

Yep.

For single-person portaits they can be acceptable as long as at least one eye is sharp. Everything else can be OOF but as long as you get one eye, hopefully the nearest to the camera, in focus it can be pleasing.

The problem when you have more than one person is that with a razor thin DOF the only way to get an eye from everyone in focus is to have them all lined up on a single plane which is not a common occurence and can be hard to do. So that is why you need to close the aperture down enough to get all the eyes acceptably sharp.

Joe Mama's portraits are among the best I've seen. I notice he uses the 100mm 2.0 which is a beautiful portrait lens. I also like shooting wide open, but lately I've started stopping down a little to assure I'm getting the subjects face in focus. Sometimes when I'm using a fast prime wide open, its hit or miss.

Rodinal wrote in post #7927297
The central factor in blur and bokeh-related questions is distance that separates your subject from the background. The shortest it is, the faster your lens needs to be in order to achieve blur.

In a small bathroom, I have obtained blurry background at f/2.0 using a 50/1.8, and I got the same kind of blur outdoors, using a 70-200/4 below 100mm, at f/4. In the first example, walls were 4 ft behind my subject and in the 2nd example, a fence and a tree (which came out blurry at f/4) were about 20 ft behind. Blur was basically the same in both cases.

So, there's no rule really. 5.6 and 8 can give you the same amount of blur if what you're trying to blur out is far far away.

There are three things that affect bokeh, aperture, distances between the camera the foreground and the background, and focal length of the lens you are using.

Joe Mama - great stuff; my hats off to you...

As you note, "it depends". However, here's a wedding portrait wide open:

Canon 5D + 100 / 2 @ f / 2, 1/5000, ISO 100

http://www.pbase.com/j​oemama/image/83879845

Thanks for the kind words! As you note, it can be difficult to nail the focus on occasion. But, I'm an amateur with terabytes of pics. I'm willing to lose a few shots to get the ones I really want. In fact, I have a story about that. A soon-to-be bride has been wanting me to shoot her wedding because she likes my style. However, I cautioned her that my pics aren't a slam-dunk. In other words, I might miss a "critical" shot because of my style. There's more to the story, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Thank you kindly! I envy that you can take your hat off to me -- everyone tells me to keep mine on! : )