First portrait help

Grumpy_one

I'll be assisting our neighbor's high school daughter doing portrait's at the school auction. There will be a back drop available to use. I have never done a portrait so I'm scouring for 'how to's'. A buddy has portable strobes, I'm going to ask to borrow/rent them. I need the ABC's of doing portraits for my own benifit and not look like a complete noob helping our neighbors daughter. I offered my epuipment: Canon 20D, EFS 17-85 4-5.6, 50 1.8 II, 580EX, Manfrotto 3233 with 410 geared head. I'll be there at the auction anyway, but I don't have a problem turning my stuff loose. So I need some quick help. She's taking some photo classes at her school and she volunteered to do portraits and email them to the parents for free. I'm only guessing there won't be any pro's there. Thanks for the help. Cheers

Scott_Quier

Here's the quick and dirty:

• Seperate your subject from the background to throw the background out of focus (OOF)
• Set one light 45 degrees off the camera-subject line and up a bit
• Set second light close to the camera-subject line. This is the fill and should be 1 to 1.5 stops less powerful than the first.
• Put umbrellas/softboxes on both
• Check white balance and set camera accordingly
• If you have a third light and a boom, put that on the hair with a snoot or barndoors
• Set your lights and aperture stopped down 1 stop from wide open.

pathfinder

Scott, that's it in a nutshell!

Grumpy_one

Now I just have to figure out what a snoot and barndoor are. Thanks for the help so far!! Cheers

Scott_Quier

Grumpy_one wrote:

Now I just have to figure out what a snoot and barndoor are. Thanks for the help so far!! Cheers

See: snoot
See: barndoor

Grumpy_one

You know I'm going to be asking a million questions here, so here goes: I have two lens right now, which would be the better choice? The EFS 17-85 4-5.6 or the 50 1.8 II? I'm thinking the 1.8 due to speed. I'll be looking this up, but I'll ask some basic questions here. How far from the camera should the subject be, and how far should the subject be from the backdrop for oof? If I use my 580EX for the one of the lights, should it be off the camera? Once I find out what lights I'll be using, I'll have a ton more questions. You said one stop form full open, so if I shoot at 2.8, how much dof will that give me? I know these are probably bone head questions, but couldn't think of a better place to ask. Thanks!!

Scott_Quier

Grumpy_one wrote:

You know I'm going to be asking a million questions here, so here goes:

OK

Grumpy_one wrote:

I have two lens right now, which would be the better choice? The EFS 17-85 4-5.6 or the 50 1.8 II? I'm thinking the 1.8 due to speed. I'll be looking this up, but I'll ask some basic questions here.

The speed of the lens is not significant, especially as you will not be shooting ambient light. What is more so is your Depth of Field (DOF). The more open your aperture, the less DOF you will have and the greater the chances that you will have part of your image OOF. Stopping down the lens will help reduce this effect. Stopping down then opens up the question a bit more as to which lens to use. So, use the one with which you are most comfortable.

Grumpy_one wrote:

How far from the camera should the subject be, and how far should the subject be from the backdrop for oof?

Distance from camera to subject is controlled by your lens and subject and the result you want to achieve. If you are doing a head & shoulders shot, you can fit that to the frame from much closer than if you are doing full body. But, understand, the closer you are to the subject, the greater will be perspective distortion. That having been said, the 50mm on a crop sensor camera will work quite nicely for portraits but might be a little long if you are going to do full-body work.

Check out the DOF Master calculator (link)

Grumpy_one wrote:

If I use my 580EX for the one of the lights, should it be off the camera?

The 580EX does not work well off-camera. The 580EX II is better suited and will work with a PC cable. If you can get your lighting off-camera, you will much better pleased with the results. It will take a bit of time to get all this figured out. I suggest you google such things as "loop lighting", "rembrandt lighting", "butterfly lighting", and "cross lighting". That will get you started and you will find others as well.

Grumpy_one wrote:

Once I find out what lights I'll be using, I'll have a ton more questions.

You said one stop form full open, so if I shoot at 2.8, how much dof will that give me?

I suggested the lens be stopped down at least one stop because all lenses are better performers when stopped down a bit.

Grumpy_one wrote:

I know these are probably bone head questions, but couldn't think of a better place to ask. Thanks!!

And, this is the right place to ask.

Grumpy_one

How much difference in lighting for couples vs singles? (More to come later)

Scott_Quier

Grumpy_one wrote:

How much difference in lighting for couples vs singles? (More to come later)

Rather than repeat the information already available elsewhere, may I gently suggest you invest some time in reading the strobist Lighting 101 blog. He's already done the work.