First time Portrait advice

[JJ!]

A friend has asked if I can take a few prom pics of her daughter.

Hopefully these will be outside in the garden.

Any tips for decent portraits? Never delved in to this area much!

lenses are 50mm, 16-85 and 70-300 and sb400 flash.

Need to get some nice shoulder/face shots and full length ones.

Any tips greatly appreciated when it comes to best f stop etc.

 

[dimorleyham]

A friend has asked if I can take a few prom pics of her daughter.

Hopefully these will be outside in the garden.

Any tips for decent portraits? Never delved in to this area much!

lenses are 50mm, 16-85 and 70-300 and sb400 flash.

Need to get some nice shoulder/face shots and full length ones.

Any tips greatly appreciated when it comes to best f stop etc.

Hi it's really not that difficult, I remember my first shoot and I was so nervous. I would use the 50mm and an fstop of 8 or 11. What camera are you using? Try and use natural light and don't shoot towards the sun. Keep the frame wide you can always crop in after. Also use spot metering and focus on the eyes they need to be sharp. Take a look at what you've shot and determine where the best light is. Use a chair and sit the subject down then go for close ups using a lover number fstop to blur out the background. Hope that helps. Plenty of tutorials online.

 

[Phil V]

You know the phrase... It's all about the light.

What time of day are you shooting?

Things to avoid:
Open bright sunlight (racoon eyes)
Shooting with the subject looking into the sun (squinty eyes)
shooting with too wide a lens (distortion big noses)


It's a bit too wide a genre for general advice. What do you want to achieve?

Look at some other photographers work and work back from there.

 

[KIPAX]

Any tips for decent portraits? Never delved in to this area much!
.

One thing i found which wasnt apparent on my screen until i got home... when you start being arty and go low.. if she looks down at the camera she will get a double chin and wont be pleased.. so watch out for going low