Shooting portraits is absolutely enjoyable for photographers, whether you are shooting your friends, family or even stranger. Sometimes, this style of photographing can be difficult for amateurs as they always try to over-complicate their photoes. So here is my tips and techniques, which might help you get the best from your portrait.

Background

You should use a plain or simple background for your portraits. In other words, you can shoot better portraits if you have less distraction from your model. I understand that sometimes there’re immovable objects in the scene. So, if you can’t really move them away, then you could try using camera with a long lens and try to open the aperture a little wider to move them out of focus.

Exposure

You should be very familiar with the exposure modes of your camera. In the event of the dark or shady moment, you could use a spot meter-reading from the face of your model as it can help you get correct exposure on the model’s face, the most significant area of the image. You can also use reflector to make your model’s face brighter.

Composition

You should ensure about you use the right composition for your portraits. Sometimes, you model may look small if you shoot too high. On the other hand, your model may look tall if you shoot too low. The best advice I can give is you should not stick with any rules. Remember that creativity is the most important thing for portrait shooting.

Pose

No matter how nice your scene, background or composition is, your photo will never be good if your model doesn’t how to pose. Also, if your model starts to feel awkward or not comfortable with the pose, this will likely destroy your photo. So, your job as a photographer is to make your model more relaxed. Maybe, it is better to talk with your model more often as this will make her feel comfortable.

Colour

Like I mentioned in background, you shouldn’t include too much colour in your scene as it will distract the attention away from your model. Ensure that you use only few colours, maybe two or three, in the scene to make your shooting frame outstanding.

Lens

There’re many good lenses for portrait shooting but here I’d like to suggest two lenses, 24-105 mm lens and 70-200 mm lens. For the low-to-middle zoom range, the 24-105 mm lens is recommended because you can shoot with a wide angle and you can also make your model stand out by making background out of focus. The 70-200 mm lens, on the other hand, give you more options for long distance shooting and can provide a great depth of field to your photo.

Others

There’re some other tips for taking portraits. Before shooting, your image quality should be set at uncompressed or RAW. This will give larger size and allow you to work with your photo later with some computer programs such as Photoshop. Also, you should know your camera gears really well including functions in your camera and lens. Finally, you should be relaxed and have fun with your shooting. Remember that you will never shoot great photos unless you enjoy doing it.

Sometimes, I take tons of photos a day but only some of them are worth printing out. So, I think it would be great if those photos are printed out with the quality just like what we see in camera’s LCD screen. So I have some of the tips and techniques for you. Let’s check it out.

Get your camera ready

Generally, camera that you buy from store doesn’t give you the best quality of image. To get the most accuracy image, you should, if possible, manually calibrate you LCD monitor screen. Firstly, you have to turn your camera on for about 30 minutes to warm up the CCD lamp to the right temperature. Then, you adjust the ambient lighting and switch your camera to user adjust mode in order to adjust contrast, brightness, etc., to match with your printer setting. There is also a tool, such as colormunki, to help you calibrate your screen.

Resize your image

In some case, you may need to resize your photo to suit your particular need. The easiest choice would be to leave the resizing to Photoshop program since it has its automatically resizing feature called “Scale to Fit Media”. This feature is excellent if you’d like to have only small amount of snap shots. However, if you want to make quality printing, then this method isn’t the best option because it may lead to several issues related to framing, cropping and resizing. To resize your image properly, you can either use the crop tool or the image and Canvas Size commands. In addition, when you open the Photoshop, go Preferences and then under the Image Interpolation menu, please ensure that Bicubic is selected rather than the Bicubic Smooth or Bicubic sharpening options.

Properly maintain your printer

It’s not a good idea to leave your printer without using for a long period of time as the ink contained may be dry up. Normally, this type of problem can occur if your printer is left for more than two months. So, if you realize that you’re not a frequent print maker, you should turn you printer on at least every week or two weeks.

Gloss or matte paper

If you like color saturation, contrast and tonal range, the gloss paper is the choice for you. On the other hand, matte paper is a lot more subtle and suitable for portrait or landscape photos very well. All in all, both types have advantages and you have to decide which is the best for you. Trying to print photos using both types and then compare is probably the option that I would do.

Use color checker

Sometimes, you may be subjective about color. So color checker allows you to make comparison in terms of color with non-subjective standard. The color checker consists of variety of colors which represent particular subjects like sky, foliage and human skin as well as black and white. It will reflect light pretty much like the visible spectrum. Given this feature, the squares of each color will match the colors of natural objects for any illumination and with any color reproduction process. Therefore, it will help you find the true balance of any color rendition system.

As you begin looking for the new camera, there should be something that you have to ask yourself. By way of asking those questions, the answers that you have could ultimately give you a potential odd for getting the right camera for you and make your decision quicker. The following list is the basic criteria that I usually use for buying new digital camera. As your shopping continues, you can modify this list to suit your own needs.

Budget

Of course, I put this as the first criterion as it is probably the first thing I will consider. In reality, there are tons of digital cameras out there in the market with the difference in terms of size, shape and quality. So, to narrow down the list, you should consider what kind of camera you can afford to pay, given the specific budget that you have.

Size

Nowadays, as manufacturers try to put some modern technologies to digital cameras, they are as a result getting smaller in every year. What is good about this technological advancement is that it allows you to have more convenience since you are able to take the camera anywhere. However, some, especially men, may not like the small camera since handling camera and shooting photo could be uncomfortable. So, I would say that tiny body, grips and buttons may not necessarily be a good thing for everyone.

Features

Features are probably the most important things to consider when buying a new digital camera. Obviously, Megapixels is the one that will determine the price level of each digital camera. It will give you the resolution of photo, i.e. how much sharpness your camera is able to create.

The zooming ability is also important to consider. To determine the importance of this ability, you may have to think what occasion you need to use zoom and how often you would use. For example, when you go to wedding ceremony, do you usually shoot many wedding shots of bride and groom when you are in the back to the church or you just take the landscape photo inside? If you often take pictures of people (i.e. portrait pictures) or any specific objects, you may need to have high zooming ability. I advise you to think about this carefully as more zooming ability means more money spent.

Also, you should consider the quality of image when you buy digital camera. This is relatively difficult to judge but you can gain some more ideas from salespersons in camera shops. So, I think it is good to talk with them and keep asking questions that you may have.

Everyday Use

As I previously mentioned, you should always consider what kind of activities and where you will use the camera. Different kinds of events (such as indoor, outdoor, sports actions, landscape, portrait) require different kinds of cameras, lens and accessories. So, be true to yourself and try to express this to salespersons in store so that they will be able to help you find the right camera.

Others

When you have a plan to buy the new camera, you should find the camera that really does it for you. It is important not to go out shopping the camera with a brand name or buy it just because someone recommends to you. If your hands always shake, you may need an image stabilizer on your camera or lens. Also, some cameras have a function that can reduce a red eye.

In closing, you should carefully consider all of these criteria and features with the price or budget you can afford. Again, remember that realizing what you actually need or look for will help you get the camera that is right for you.