Ideal Portraits Settings
- Thread starter doremonx
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Del_CtrlnoAlt
Senior Member
GENO said:
Ideal portrait setting... buy 135 STF... the ideal lens enuff liao... y bother simi aperture? :bsmilie:
doremonx
Senior Member
Thanks for all the KM old birds' advices...
I am using KM28-75mm and 50/1.7.
I know about aperture. I would like to know about the rest of setting like sharpness, contrast, color, etc.
I don't like portriats that's too sharp. I know I can trial and error but hopefully some experts can share their experience. Thanks!!
I am using KM28-75mm and 50/1.7.
I know about aperture. I would like to know about the rest of setting like sharpness, contrast, color, etc.
I don't like portriats that's too sharp. I know I can trial and error but hopefully some experts can share their experience. Thanks!!
if you are really particular about portraits, shoot in MRW RAW, this will give you almost full control of post process sharpness, contrast, color, etc you mentioned, you can do adjustment/RAW conversion to the effect as you like, though there's quite a learning curve for RAW conversion :sweat: .
Generally I love to shoot with 50mm f1.7 at f2 for close up shot just the head and shoulder shot but most of the time will shoot at f4 to get enough depth of field.
I turn everything to 0 for the digital effect, and post process all my images.
I sharpen slightly for portrait just around the eye area... but leaving the rest normal (since 7D is slightly soft for 0 in sharpness).
I prefer to start with slightly soft image to work with.. because I think if an image is too sharp it appears not very natural and gives you that Digital image look.
The photos should not sharper than what your eyes can see... hence making the viewer not thinking about the technical of the photos but the actual image itself.
That's what I think anyway...
Hope this help.
Hart
I turn everything to 0 for the digital effect, and post process all my images.
I sharpen slightly for portrait just around the eye area... but leaving the rest normal (since 7D is slightly soft for 0 in sharpness).
I prefer to start with slightly soft image to work with.. because I think if an image is too sharp it appears not very natural and gives you that Digital image look.
The photos should not sharper than what your eyes can see... hence making the viewer not thinking about the technical of the photos but the actual image itself.
That's what I think anyway...
Hope this help.
Hart
AncientMariner
New Member
doremonx said:
Now that the experts have spoken, maybe I can chip in a bit here.
Firstly, I believe you can shoot portraits with any lens and I have used lenses with focal lengths from a 19mm to 500mm depending on what I want to portray and in what perspective e.g. feature, expression, mood, pose, environment; closeup, half-body, full length etc
More important is the type and source of lighting as well as the play of light and shadows - outdoor ambient, shade, flash-lit, studio strobe; high key, low key etc. One should also not restrict oneself with preconveived ideas of best f-stop for any lens since you may want different effects eg. a distinct background to show the setting, different degrees of blur background to emphasize the subject etc. Also similarly adjust the camera settings to enhance the effect you want to achieve.
Iirc, the preset portraiture mode for the 5D has contrast -1, saturation +1 and sharpness 0. Since you prefer softer look, perhaps you can start from there and adjust from there to see what you like when you review.
Most of my earlier pics from this site was with or adjusted from this setting:
http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/JkChan/Portraits/
Hope I did not confuse you more.
AncientMariner said:
Well said..
Lighting is very important area of photography..
I suppose the use of a lens (we are talking 35mm) from 50mm to 135mm is the traditional way of doing portrait, of course you are not limited to those focal length, but I guess it is much convenience too to shoot with a length of those focal length.
500mm lens will set you back at least 10m to do half length images hence yelling from 10m is much harder.... but of course it can be done.
I think basically it is personal preference when coming to choosing what you use to shoot portrait... There is not right or wrong on what you choose..
However, I thnk we digress from what the original author has asked.... what we are doing here is sharing what we use as the setting.. of course, the author may choose that setting as the starting point until he or she finds the balance of setting that he or she prefer.
Regards,
Hart
Think OP just want the "standard" - dare I say cliched way to take portrait... i.e. minimal distortion, good background isolation, if he/she wants experimental portraits, he/she won't be posting this here as a question.
I got a suggestion, just need a patient model to help you...
Take your 50mm f1.7 and shoot your subject at regular f-stop intervals, e.g. 1.7, 2.8, 3.5, 5.6... etc. for:
- full face
- head + shoulders
- half body
- full body
Note down which aperture setting YOU liked the most for each distance to model, paying most attention to the diff in DoF...
Then you will have at least a set of settings for your 50mm lens (75mm equivalent)... repeat for other focal length if necessary, or just estimate from your original experiment...
I got a suggestion, just need a patient model to help you...
Take your 50mm f1.7 and shoot your subject at regular f-stop intervals, e.g. 1.7, 2.8, 3.5, 5.6... etc. for:
- full face
- head + shoulders
- half body
- full body
Note down which aperture setting YOU liked the most for each distance to model, paying most attention to the diff in DoF...
Then you will have at least a set of settings for your 50mm lens (75mm equivalent)... repeat for other focal length if necessary, or just estimate from your original experiment...
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