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08/05/2007 11:27:32 AM · #1 |
Hey fellow DPC'ers :o)
I need some help! In just over a week my 16 year old brother is coming to stay with me for a few days and he has asked me if I would take some photos of him. Here's a couple of snapshots of him from recently (not taken by me)...
 
I live in Leeds and have a few places in mind where I hope to be able to get some shots of him, the only thing is...I know NOTHING about portrait photography and I only have a VERY basic 'kit'...
Canon EOS350D
Canon 18-55mm (kit lens)
Canon 70-200 F4L
And my trusty Manfrotto tripod :o)
There are some great shopping arcades in leeds - click here and here. The corn exhange is also pretty cool inside.
Where I live there are some excellent bridges which I can see my brother 'posing' around.
Two shots he really wants are him totally in focus with the people around him appearing to be rushing by (so blurred I suppose!) and a night shot where he's in the middle of the road with just the streak of car lights either side of him.
So, with my basic kit and zero knowledge of portrait photography...can I do it? Also can any of you show me photos from DPC that might help to give me some ideas of poses?
Of course any hints/tips/advice are always greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading,
Natalya :o)
Message edited by author 2007-08-05 11:32:17. |
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08/05/2007 11:35:35 AM · #2 |
Tal, from what I've learned of you here, you can do ANYthing you set your mind to! :D
(Sorry I don't have any practical help, I know far less than you do...) |
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08/05/2007 11:37:25 AM · #3 |
| Your 70-200 will do ok and there's a Portrait section of the galleries here to browse through for ideas. |
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08/05/2007 12:10:39 PM · #4 |
I have no practical advice for you either, but I know that you are an extremely talented photographer, and you will have no problems taking portraits of your brother! You'll be fine! I can't wait to see the results. :)
~Magen |
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08/05/2007 12:51:12 PM · #5 |
Tal, I can't say I'm any better, but I've been trying to learn portrait photography too. My advice is find a willing friend or just use yourself and go to the locations you think might work and take the pictures you want to take when your brother is around. The few times I've done that, I've spent hours doing test shots and learning about what it means to shoot in that location. Then, when your brother is around, it will be much faster to set up a shot because you'll already have experienced that exact shot before.
And, after your tests, you can always post the test pictures up here and ask for advice. |
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08/05/2007 01:06:05 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Your 70-200 will do ok and there's a Portrait section of the galleries here to browse through for ideas. |
I second both of these motions :-)
Also, as well as scouting out potential locations, I would scout the light at those locations as well, so you can know the best times/conditions to hit those spots.
There are some on site tutorials that may have some good info for you, and I know there has been a lot of forum threads with tips/advice/info on portraiture. A search would probably yield nearly endless reading on it.
For the 'blur' shot, if you have a spot with the right time/light, and stop down your aperture to get a slightly slow shutter, and have a 'pose' that your bro. can hold perfectly still long enough, you should be able to do that readily enough. |
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08/05/2007 01:42:31 PM · #7 |
I have four recommendations that have really helped my portraits:
1) Get in close. No, I mean CLOSE.
2) Avoid on-camera flash at all costs. Use a window, go outside, even use the flash from another camera held off to the side (my poor man's off-camera flash).
3) Use a the smallest f-stop number (which means the aperture is large) that leaves the whole face in focus. That'll blur out the background.
4) Read Idnic's excellent learning thread about portraits. She starts out with a great discussion of natural lighting.
For the specialty shots you mentioned, you'll definitely need your tripod.
Mall shot with blurred people: your biggest challenge will be DOF, because you're going to have to use a mid-range aperture in order to leave the shutter open long enough to get blur. Set the camera to shutter priorty and choose maybe 1 second to start with. Leave the flash off. Find a location where there's light on your brother, not behind him. Take some test shots to get the focus right on your brother. It'll probably be best to put the camera in timer mode, with a 1-second delay, so your pushing the shutter button won't move the camera. When you do open the shutter, tell him to be absolutely still and not to move until you tell him to.
Here's a shot showing how much people blur out in indoor lighting in 2 seconds:
Street shot: if you're going for what I'm imagining, you'll again want to be in shutter priority mode, or maybe even full manual. You'll probably want an exposure of at least 2 seconds long to get good streaks (depends on how fast the cars are moving). Here, I'd suggest using your flash to light up your brother. Again, tell him not to move until you say so; most people assume the flash means the shutter has closed. If you're going to shoot sideways, with cars going left to right and vice versa, you might try setting your flash to "second curtain," which means it'll fire at the end of the exposure instead of the beginning. That will make the cars you catch appear to be in front of their light trails instead of behind.
One last suggestion: go practice without your brother. :)
Have fun, and share what you get!
Message edited by author 2007-08-05 13:47:45.
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08/05/2007 01:50:57 PM · #8 |
Many thanks to all of you for your replies, you are really helping me get my head around this!
Regarding the portrait section here on DPc - I have been looking through the portrait gallery for a weeks and have found that rather than give me ideas etc I am just getting more and more anxious! The standard of work here on DPC is fantastic, I think what I need to do is just focus on the poses etc rather than how great the overall shot is!
Jeffery, many thanks for your tips on the 2 speciality shots, I hope to be able to do a little practice at them before we do the 'shoot'!
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08/05/2007 02:04:07 PM · #9 |
Talj, don't let the quality of portraits freak you out.
These are the best portraits I've ever taken:
 
They each took about 5 minutes.
Heck, this is my "studio" for the second one:
What I find works well is to just tell the person to relax and be themselves. Smiling shots can work, but only if the emotion is genuine. Serious looks can also work very well. Just take a zillion shots. Keep clicking. Don't worry so much about the perfect pose. At some point when you want a smile, stick out your tongue, tease him, or throw something at him. :)
Another tip is that I sometimes use burst mode for portraits. It's amazing how very small changes in expression, tilt of the head, etc. can go from blah to great.
Ignoring the editing, compare just the facial expression in the first one to this, which I took 28 seconds later.
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08/05/2007 04:55:27 PM · #10 |
Shoot as many photos as you can. The ones you do not expect are usually the ones that turn out the best. So hit the button alot, hit it hard, hit it fast. You are only wasting memory and you can delete the crap shots. Have fun.
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08/05/2007 05:12:40 PM · #11 |
As my main passion is landscape photography, and I am quite a 'perfectionist' with my landscape shots, I tend to wait for that perfect shot (I'm yet to get it though!) and then I just shoot a couple of images. I hate the idea of shooting and sort of 'hoping for the best'! But, my brother is with me for a week so I suppose there will be plenty of opportunity to practice and then when I feel comfortable we can go out and take those shots he really wants!
Thanks to you all for your encouraging words and helpful hints! I will post my practice work here once my brother arrives and hopefully get some feedback! :) |
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