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Yorgo Nestoridis. Visit the original article at
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Portrait Shooting
Based on Digital Photography Ycademy 9 we are able to plan our pictures depth of field. The only remaining problem is: you may have a camera which does not allow for A settings (manual Aperture priority settings).
Don’t worry, there is a way to at least partially compensate for this shortfall.
The below gallery can best be viewed HERE (opens new window).
Depth of Field in Portraiting with a low end Camera or Mobile Phone
Remember, we said that the depth of field is function of aperture and distance. Hence, we can use the distance trick which works with most any digital camera or mobile phone.
First we try to compose our picture in a way that the person is not glued to a background, such as leaning on a wall. Position the person at least 2 meters off the next background. Then frame clsosely from maximum 1.5 meters (without zooming). The result may be better if the background is even further away to fall out of the metered focal range (corresponding to infinity settings) which is at about 10-12 meters.
Now shoot your portrait: the autofocus will grab the face and apply the distance, which in it’s turn will trigger the aperture and shutter speed in function of that distance and light. By setting your camera presets on Portrait, the camera does this as well, whereas a narroc depth of field is forced.
In any case, you will end up with a sharp portrait and a more or less blurred background.
Portrait Post Editing
If you have taken your picture according to the above, then your post editing is a sunday walk. Just apply some of the great lightroom presets or photoshop actions. Some of these professional tools will lift the quality of your mediocre picture dramatically and clearly digg a huge canion between you and the competitors in your camera’s class.
Here an example: the below picture has been taken with my 4 years old $50 supermarket camera according to the above rule. Then I just pulled it through some professional filters such as stuff from from Kubota, Davis and onOne. This is a matter of just seconds :-).
Join tonight’s YcademyWorkshop for more tips and tricks.
| Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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Digital Photography Ycademy 10
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Portrait Shooting
Based on Digital Photography Ycademy 9 we are able to plan our pictures depth of field. The only remaining problem is: you may have a camera which does not allow for A settings (manual Aperture priority settings).
Don’t worry, there is a way to at least partially compensate for this shortfall.
The below gallery can best be viewed HERE (opens new window).
Depth of Field in Portraiting with a low end Camera or Mobile Phone
Remember, we said that the depth of field is function of aperture and distance. Hence, we can use the distance trick which works with most any digital camera or mobile phone.
First we try to compose our picture in a way that the person is not glued to a background, such as leaning on a wall. Position the person at least 2 meters off the next background. Then frame clsosely from maximum 1.5 meters (without zooming). The result may be better if the background is even further away to fall out of the metered focal range (corresponding to infinity settings) which is at about 10-12 meters.
Now shoot your portrait: the autofocus will grab the face and apply the distance, which in it’s turn will trigger the aperture and shutter speed in function of that distance and light. By setting your camera presets on Portrait, the camera does this as well, whereas a narroc depth of field is forced.
In any case, you will end up with a sharp portrait and a more or less blurred background.
Portrait Post Editing
If you have taken your picture according to the above, then your post editing is a sunday walk. Just apply some of the great lightroom presets or photoshop actions. Some of these professional tools will lift the quality of your mediocre picture dramatically and clearly digg a huge canion between you and the competitors in your camera’s class.
Here an example: the below picture has been taken with my 4 years old $50 supermarket camera according to the above rule. Then I just pulled it through some professional filters such as stuff from from Kubota, Davis and onOne. This is a matter of just seconds :-).
Join tonight’s YcademyWorkshop for more tips and tricks.
If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.