Wingpilot wrote:
My 24 year old grandson is visiting us for Christmas, and our daughter (his mom) wants me to take some portraits of Nick because she doesn't have a current photo of him. I haven't done any portraits before and would like some advice on how to set up for an informal portrait sitting. I don't have lights or a backdrop, other than a beige blank section of our living room wall. All I have is my A6300 and a 16-50 lens and a 55-210 lens. Choice #2 is a Nikon D90 and an 18-105 lens. What I really need is suggestions on how to position him, some effective camera settings, etc. This will be a learning experience for me. I'd appreciate any good advice. Thanks in advance.
My 24 year old grandson is visiting us for Christm... (
show quote)
You should decide if a long or short lens will work for you by looking at the results. I have used wider angle lenses at greater distances and some cropping to get a decent "look". Keep in mind that it is the subject to camera distance that controls how elongated or flat a face will appear. If you try to fill a head shot using a very wide angle lens like an 18mm, the face will be narrow and have a big nose, aka "horse face" or extension distortion, common to wide angle lenses. But it is an illusion, because to fill the frame you have to be very close. If you were to move back to the same distance you would need to fill the frame with a 105mm lens, the face will be smaller, but it will look exactly like the 105mm shot, but there will be a lot of space around the subject.
"Look at the size of his head – it appears disproportionately large relative to his body. His eyes, nose and lips are very much enlarged, while his ears are dwarfed. And this was only at 27mm! You can imagine what it would look like if I got closer to his face or used a wider lens at a shorter distance.
This phenomenon is explained with drawings and real images here:
https://photographylife.com/what-is-distortionHere a quote from the text:
"This is the part that seems to confuse a lot of photographers – the relationship (or lack thereof) of focal length to perspective distortion. You might hear some photographers say that one should use longer focal lengths to photograph people, or they will get distorted due to the lens’ short focal length. This is a mostly false statement, because lenses have no perspective. Other than fisheye lenses, all lenses have the same perspective – it is the camera to subject distance that determines perspective, not the focal length. There is an illusion of different perspective of lenses, because with long focal lengths you have to stand further away from the subject to frame them the same way. If you were to stand at the same distance, the subject would appear exactly the same!"As far as lighting is concerned, if you have a garage, you can open the garage door, set up a simple background, like maybe a 4x8 sheet of bead board insulation or drywall, and seat the subject in front of the background, with the light from the open door falling on the subject without getting any direct sunlight. Watch your color balance because open skylight is quite cool.
Another approach might be to find an outdoor location that has enough room to put some distance between the subject and the background. Using the most flattering combination of camera to subject distance and focal length, use a fairly large aperture, so that the background can be softly blurred. The best times for these kinds of pictures will be up to an hour after sunrise or an hour before sunse - the golden hour.
You can find a lot of examples some good and some awful - here:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=golden%20hour%20portraitIf you have to add some fill light to open up the shadows on the side of the face not illuminated by your light source - then use a very large reflector. I use one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJO9IZPQnKMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAcY5ob2UnEThe larger the light source, or in this case the fill source, the softer the effect and the more open the shadows will be. Placing the beadboard or light closer to the subject will provide softer light than if you put a light or reflector 20 ft away.
Lighting and posing for portraits is best explained using examples:
https://digital-photography-school.com/6-portrait-lighting-patterns-every-photographer-should-know/