Outdoor Portraits present portrait photographers a variety of challenges and opportunities. Today James Pickett suggests 13 tips to help you with your outdoor portrait work.
With my very first digital SLR there was a sigh of relief, everything was going to be so much easier now and I didn't have to think anymore.
You know the scenario; you pull the camera out, charge the batteries, go for a walk around the house and down the street taking the same pictures you have taken every time a new camera came into your life. "This is great!" you think to yourself, "this is going to make my life so much easier!" I was wrong… In fact, I was dead wrong.
There are three very simple things that improve all photography, including portraits. To this day, there is no trick I have found that replaces the need for proper exposure, white balance, and sharp focus. Today's digital cameras have less exposure latitude than a roll of Kodak gold film. In-camera metering systems have become much more advanced, but the sensors still lack the seven ƒ-stop exposure latitude that negative film has.
1) Never select all of the focus points for portraits, pick one.
When you pick the autofocus option that allows the camera to select focus points, you are doing your portraits a terrible disservice. This feature of a camera is usually designed to pick whatever is closest to the lens and focus there. In some cases, like with my 1DS Mark III, the camera will choose a cluster of focus points and make a "best guess" based on averaging the distance between all of the chosen points. Using one focus point gives you, the photographer, ultimate control.
2) Always focus on the eyes.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, and should be the focal point of any good portrait. Not only are the eyes the most important part of a good portrait, but they are the sharpest element on the face and should be left that way. When you are shooting with a wide aperture value focused on the eyes, the lens's bokeh will aid in softening the skin as well.
3) Shoot wide open for shallow depth of field.
There are quite a few reasons to invest in a fast lens capable of wide aperture values; the most common is for shallow depth of field. Now that you can shoot at ƒ2.8 or ƒ4 you should use it. Most fantastic natural light portraits are from wide aperture values and it is all because of the wonderful smooth background blur we call "bokeh".
4) Never, ever, shoot a portrait at less than 50mm; try to stay at 70mm or higher.
The last thing you want to hear from a client is "Why does my head look swelled?" Any focal length below 70mm can distort your subject, however it doesn't become very noticeable until you are below 50 MM. The compression effect of a telephoto lens will also increase the blur of bokeh. Most of my portraits are done between 120mm and 200mm.
5) Always shoot in RAW.
A thousand times these words have bellowed from my mouth, and it will surely come out a million more. Raw is an unmodified compilation of your sensors data during the time of exposure. It is your digital negative. When you shoot in JPG format, everything but what the image processor needs to make a shell representation of the image you intended to capture is stripped away. For every edit you make to a JPG, you lose more data. With RAW, you can make a vast range of edits before creating the JPG. How can this make you portrait better? Think about the last time your white balance was set incorrectly, and you tried for hours to remove the color cast only to destroy the image with every attempt. RAW would have saved you by allowing you to fix the color before opening the image for retouching.
6) Always bring a gray card or a piece of a gray card for white balance.
Direct sunlight is harsh, makes your subject squint, and creates hard directional shadows and unpredictable white balance conditions. When shooting in the shade, there are no more harsh shadows, only smooth milky shadows created by your subject's natural features. With proper exposure and white balance, you can make these shots look amazing.
8) Shooting carefully on an overcast day.
Natures softbox is a giant blanket of clouds. A good heavy blanket of cloud cover can help you enrich your colors, and make some very smooth and pleasing shadows.
Always try to control the direction, use some kind of reflector, and try to mimic a studio light. Putting the sun directly behind your subject isn't a good idea, unless you are trying to make a silhouette. When the sun is at my back, I have the subject look off camera (away from the sun) and get very nice results. Another great trick is to wait for a cloud to move in front of the sun, this usually creates a very bright yet contrasted look.
10) Use an existing reflector.
For example, my guess is that about 75% of the delivery trucks on the planet are white. These big white delivery trucks can make amazing fill light reflectors as long as they weren't painted with an off white. (A yellow tint can change the white balance in your shadows.) Picture framing outlets and craft stores always have medium to large sized pieces of foam core lying around that have been left for scrap. They are usually more than happy to part with these scraps, and if not, chances are there are pieces by the dumpster.
11) Learn the sunny ƒ16 rule.
12) Bring a sheet and a few spring clamps from home.
Leave the expensive 200 thread count sheets on the bed. You already got them? Well go put them back. You know that cheap old sheet you stuck in the corner of a closet to use as a drop cloth the next time you paint? Go get it. (Another option is to buy the cheapest, lowest thread count, white top sheet you can find.) A queen size sheet is an amazing, cheap, diffuser. Sort of a sever foot soft box for the sun. Wrap an edge of the sheet around a branch or clothes line and clamp for a side light. (Anchor the bottom corners with rocks to keep it from blowing into your image.) Clamp all for corners to anything you can above your subject for an overhead light.
13) Keep the power-lines and signs out!
We have already discussed keeping your camera focused on the eyes; keep your mind focused on the image as a whole. Power lines, signs, long single blades of grass, single pieces of garbage, sometimes even trees can be serious distractions from the overall focus of the image… The person you are photographing.
Last, and most important, have a great time shooting, enjoy what you're doing and it will show in your work, and the expression of your subject.
Clouds are wonderful. They create a giant blanket of natural sunlight diffusion to make your images rich and powerful. The clouds can fool your mind in ways you can't imagine, much like your mind corrects for the natural white balance throughout the day.
When you are shooting on an overcast day, custom white balance is especially important. Every day is completely different for color, and that color depends on two things. First, the time of day, as most people understand white balance and how it changes throughout the day. Second, you have to account for all of the wonderful things that light has to pass through before it hits your subject.
Pollution changes the color of the light from minute to minute even if your eyes don't see it, your camera does. On a cloudy day, pollution particles are being carried around in the sky by little tiny prisms; water droplets. Now your sunlight is passing through nature's prism and reflecting off of pollution particles in infinite directions.
Don't forget to white balance with that custom, tricked out, six dollar piece of cardboard, your Kodak gray card.
The ultimate secret to shooting on a cloudy day is a compass. (You either tipped your head like a confused Chihuahua or just had an epiphany.) I am an experienced, internationally published photographer, and rarely can I see where the sun is coming from on an overcast day. The light isn't omnipresent; it's just diffused, softened and scattered. Sunlight on a cloudy day is still directional, and your subject still has a dark side. Use a compass to find out where the sun is, put it at your back and shoot like mad. Never again will you look at an image after and wonder why the sky is blown out when it was so cloudy, or why the clouds look great but your subject is dark.
A really nice and helpful article on my favourite type of photography. Please check my tutorial as well it has some additional info and samples.
This was an informative web page. I liked the tips so I copied them for my own photography "things to remember".
I started shooting just over a year ago. I've had two classes and there's a studio class coming up next month. I bought lots of things; flashes, lenses 2 bodies, backdrop and many other photo related things. I'm sure anyone who is in this hobby knows what I'm talking about. It can get endless.
I have good lenses so now it's just learning how to utilize them best. Five of them are all 2.8 aperture and I have the Nifty Fifty which I need to start using more. I got caught up with the other focal lengths and forgot how great of a lens it is.
I've been shooting portraits with my 70-200 but I think I need to get the 50mm involved more after reading the things written here. It's great having people who post informative and knowledgeable lessons learned for all of us to shoot by.
The comments are good too.
Thanks for another useful article!!!!
hi brother and sister may i ask u some question? when i used ef 50m 1.8 II and ef 50m 1.4 got back and front focus problems, but for telephoto len look no problem. i wonder so much please help me. y my camera or len problem? how to solve it?
Kathleen you are my hero!!! LOL, seriously your explanation just now is the culmination of months of me trying to "get it" in how the relationship works between ISO, shutterspeed and Fstop! I'm passionate about photography and might even make it a business someday. I've gotten by on some basic understanding and mad photoshop skills, lol, but I know if I can just have better control over my camera I could be unstoppable because of my love and passion for the art. Your quick post has changed things for me and I'm so thankful for your willingness to share your knowledge with us!
Hillary, You can use a higher number for the f-stop to get a greater depth of field. You must increase you lighting by decreasing your shutter speed or increasing your ISO to balance the lighting. This may be more detail than you would like but it is a recipe for perfect lighting.
The higher the ISO number the "faster" the sensor responds to light so the less light it needs But it will also will be more grainy because it isn't using every bit of the surface of the sensor as effectively as a lower ISO.
The higher the number of the shutter speed the faster the shutter opens and closes and the less amount of light it lets in. Higher shutter speeds allow you to "stop" action while slower speed may need a tripod to keep them from becoming blurry due to hand shake. Shutter speeds are a measurement of time the higher speeds which usually read 250, 500, 1000... are actually fractions of a second. So, 250 is 1/250 of a second, which means the sensor only sees the image for 1/250 of a second and light only hits the sensor for 1/250 of a second.
(Side note: I was taught that you should avoid hand holding the camera when the lens is larger in mm than the time of the shutter speed you are using. If you are using a 250mm lens you should not hand hold the camera with a slower shutter speed than 250 because of hand shake blur. A 60mm lens can be hand held at a shutter speed of 60 or above and should still have a sharp image.) I don't typically use a shutter speed below 45 without a tripod no matter the lens size because I just can't hold that sill. Even at 45 I try to find a place to prop and shoot at the end of the exhale.
F-stop is a fraction measurement for the opening of the lens which confuses people very easily because the higher the f number the smaller the opening f16 would be 1/16, were f2 would be 1/2 which is a larger opening than 1/16. Now that I've said that, I can explain how the opening works. The very center of the lens is the most focused part of the lens when the lens is wide open (wide open means the f-stop is the lowest "f" number) then the edges of the lens are not going to be in as sharp of focus as the center (lenses are curved --- think about how glasses work). If you use a f-stop that is higher, like f16 then you are blocking off the edges of the lens because you have closed down the aperture (opening) of the lens. This means that the image the sensor sees is limited to the center of the lens and the more focused area of the lens. It is not cropping your image it is only limiting the part of the lens you use to see the image. Because you are closing down the aperture, which increases focus but makes the hole smaller, you need to get more light to the sensor either by keeping the shutter open longer (which means slowing down the shutter speed) or increasing the ISO number (the sensor's sensitivity to light).
Adding an additional external light source is necessary when you can't balance the perfect lighting equation without it .
What a great article, Thanks! I wish I'd had this a year ago when I was starting out. The last problem I am having trouble getting over is when I DON"T want a shallow depth of field. When I have a landscape or group and I want everything in focus-I have trouble. I've looked into the infinity manual thing and that hasn't really worked. I know if I use a higher f-stop, that theoretically should work, right? Any help will make my life so much easier. You explained the items in this article so well, I know you can help me out. Thanks!
Interesting article backed up by fascinating range of comments!
Folks have already mentioned the problem with "always / never" statements, especially with #4. But it does help to master and know the "rules" first, then you can break them with confidence. Also, #9, harsh light or not, shooting directly up someone's nose is rarely flattering for portraits. I'd use a different image to illustrate that section. Having harsh sun directly in the subject's eyes (sun behind you) is rarely ever a good idea. You just need a flash fill when you have the sun as a back light or split light, which looks better IMO. Oh, be careful advising people to shoot wide open so much. Too many newbies already shoot everything wide open, and it does not work for every situation. Some clients might complain that they don't see the details of the portrait location that you all traveled to. What's the point of a location portrait if you can't tell what the background is in any of the pictures? Some are okay, but not the entire session. It also doesn't work so well with pairs and groups when you need more than one face to be sharp. Wedding photographers typically have to deal with harsh afternoon light since we rarely have the luxury of shooting the bulk of portraits at more optimal times of day. Shade is your rule, then developing your favorite techniques out in harsh sun are also important. Who has time to wait for a passing cloud during wedding portraits? and I'd argue the same goes also for any by-the-hour portrait session. You think small children have patience to wait for the perfect overcast lighting conditions or that they will be "on" when you are lucky enough to have the perfect cloud passing? Yeah, right. You better have several techniques down pat. You certainly can't rely on clouds to cooperate. For weddings, we're restricted to a limited window of time on the overall wedding day schedule for portraits, so if you're primarily shooting weddings, coming up with your best practices to work with less than optimal lighting situations during portraits, and throughout the day for that matter, will be paramount for doing good work consistently.
can we shoot video in macro mode with any dslr cameras ?
One note on white balance: if one is shooting raw then it is not a critical consideration.
Also rather than never shoot in bright sunlight, it can make a pleasing high- key photo as long as the main subject of the portrait is exposed right.
I agree totally with shallow depth of field so much more flattering and focus on the eyes always far more pleasing to see crystal sharp eyelashes and also a medium to long focal lens 85mm f2.8 is the ideal outdoor portrait lens but a versatile all-round 70-200 f2.8 will always be useful in all outdoor portrait situations.
Thanks a lot for sharing those good & useful tips!!
I loved this article. Thank you James for giving a simple outline with useful detail of specific tips for improving outdoor photography. I agree with everything you said, especially for beginners that need a good foundation to build on. I also think your advice is great for non-beginners that skipped the rules, jumping in with instinctive talent, and are ready to learn the rules so they can break them with control and depend less on happy accidents.
@ #4: I agree with the issues with using a wide angle lens and distortion especially for full body shot. As my instructor pointed out, "Look at the feet, did you mean for them to be twice as big as the head?" Oops. If you are going for Natural, the eye sees at about 50mm which makes it natural to us. Take into consideration whether your sensor is full 1:1 or not (say 1:1.5) effects the lens choice. My senor is the second so I multiply my lens length (50mm) times sensor (1.5) which mean my 50mm lens makes an image that looks like it was shot with a 75mm lens. If I want 50mm I shoot with a 34mm.
I love the comments and responses. The information being passed around is like food for my photographers soul.
@ Shannon her #1 tip Read the Camera Manual is my #1 tip. I finally read mine 2 years after I got the camera because my teacher needed me to sync it to strobe and I didn't think it could. Not only can it but there is a whole lot of things it can do that I never knew and it is only a Pentax K10D. I know...It let me use my film camera lenses, someday I'll be able to afford a real camera. :) By the way, I really like what Shannon shared.
@ James tip #5 shoot RAW.... Yes Yes Yes Yes!!!!!! If you have never shot in RAW try it. RAW captures every pixel as it's own color. It is uncompressed. When you process the image either through the camera's raw processor or the raw window when opening it into Photo Shop you can adjust the exposure, contrast, brightness, blacks, fill, recovery, clarity, vibrancy and saturation prior to compression so your adjustments are going to be better. One of my instructors told me to always shoot in RAW until I was good enough to shoot a perfect image every time... and then I should still shoot in RAW. Yes it is more time consuming to process but I only work with the best shots anyways and I want them to be their best so I use RAW. I do shoot jpg on occasion and RAW +JPG when I have enough memory on my memory card and I'm in a hurry but I accept the difference. Not for a limited number of quality portraits though, they get RAW treatment.
@ Shallow depth of field: It is possible to go to shallow. I do it way too often. I was told to focus on the bridge of the nose if the face is turned. This is how I judge depth of field. From the point of focus, twice as much will be in focus behind as what is in front of the point of focus. If there were 4 rows of people the second row would be the best row to focus on. Applied to a face, If you have a shallow depth of field and focus on the eyes then the nose to the ears should be in focus unless the depth of field is too narrow. If so, increase the depth of field -this means increase the number of the f-stop/ aperture. If you want more of the image in focus raise the number of the aperture (f4, f5.6, f8, f11...), if you want less in focus lower the number of the aperture (f4, f3.5, f2.8, f2...).
@ ISO: Is a reference to film speed (sensitivity to light). Digital has created an approximation which is base on film ISO. ISO 100 is not very sensitive to light because it has more "pixels" that need more time to react to light which also make it have a finer grain (less pixilated and smoother look). It gives you the most "pixels" to work with but it needs lots of light. It is great for brightly lit subjects that you hope to enlarge to huge print images. ISO 800 is much more sensitive to light because it uses less "pixels" that need to react to light but it is more grainy. It is good for low light caused by environmental lighting or fast shutter speeds to stop action. The higher the ISO the less light it needs but the grainier it will be. The graininess of your ISO is also effected by the quality of your camera and senor. The better the camera the higher the ISO you can go before the image gets disturbingly grainy. I'm using "pixels" as a reference to simulated grain, not the specific size of the image.
I also break rule about putting the sun behind your subject, slightly to the side. I like the rim light effect it gives but I use a fill flash or white board (sometimes both) to reflect the light back onto my subject so they aren't a silhouette. I also try to avoid shooting directly into the sun because I've heard it is not good for the sensor.
Claire has given a thorough start point. May I add a little?>) ISO: = camera sensitivity to light. Aperture is the size of the opening in the back end of your lens: lower fstop number = bigger opening. It is actually a ratio but don't get that involved yet! Shutter speed is how long the shutter opens to let light hit your camera's sensor and make an image (sensor = film in the old days). If you took a photo at ISO 100, f4, 1/100th of a second and it turned out perfect, and you changed the ISO to 400, aperture f4, the shutter would double in speed twice - 1/400th of a second for the same clear picture. All 3 interact. If you set your camera to Aperture mode and turn it as low as you can go (biggest opening), your shutter will go faster and give clearer pictures. Turn up the ISO for better results, but be careful: as ISO goes up and sensitivity increases, the blacks start to get grainy and fuzzy - grey. I'd start about ISO 400 or 800 - see how they work. As Claire said, a great lens to grab is the 50mm f1.8. For my Sony it was $128 Canadian. It's aperture is 1.8, where your lens' is likely 3.5 zoomed out and 5.6 zoomed in. May be a small change in numbers from 1.8 to 5.6, but it would cut shutter speed from 1/30th sec for a clear picture to about 1/250th sec. or same shutter 1/30th in a much darker room. Much clearer final image. Also, as aperture size increases, depth of field drops. That is the amount of in focus part of your picture. If you took a photo of someone holding your baby at f1.8 and you were about 5 feet away, the baby's eyes and maybe ears would be clear. The person holding him / her would have slightly blurry features and fuzzy ears. Great for portraits. Dial the fstop to say 22 and you'll get a clear image 100 feet deep (that's a guestimatimagination)! Hope this helps! Have fun!!!
Have my first photoshoot this Saturday with two toddlers (both almost 2 years old) and a 7 month old baby... feeling nervous and excited - we're meeting at 10am, hoping the light is good at that time! I have a Canon T3i and I'm not sure if I should use my 50mm lens or my 18-55mm lens. Any thoughts/tips/advice anyone has for me would be greatly appreciated!
@michelle: My first piece of advice is to swap the 18-55 lens with a 50mm 1.8 (a very inexpensive prime to start out with)...if you have the money then I would upgrade to the 50mm 1.4. Secondly, if the manual isn't sinking in, try going onto Nikon's website and go through your camera's digital instruction manual. The site has a lot of examples that really helps you comprehend what you are reading. After that shoot as often as possible...you will learn a lot from your mistakes. If you can sign up for any classes that will really help too. Since you are a mom, I recommend Clickin Moms (clickinmoms.com). It is a website for all types of moms (not actually a requirement to be a mom or even a female)...and is for beginners to professionals. You can buy a lifetime membership for a relatively low cost. It has a lot of resources plus it has online and in person workshops. I highly recommend it in addition to this site. Books are also great references and just studying others work is great for training your eye.
For the live show shots, I am assuming that there is low lighting. Are you shooting in manual mode? If you are not, this will make the biggest difference in the overall look of your shots and you need to learn it but that is a whole other overwhelming discussion. The 50mm 1.8 will help you in the low light situations esp if you are shooting in manual mode and you'll have to learn the proper iso, shutter speed and exposure settings. (look up the golden triangle rule when it comes to iso, shutter speed, and exposure...it'll explain how they are al related.) However, a tripod will also help minimize any shake. If you have a remote shutter release, that will help reduce shake as well. I would concentrate on getting a few good shots instead of rapid fire shooting and hoping that one comes out...that ability will come in time.
Oh and just as a reference for ISO...remember back in the day when you had to buy film? Well keep in mind that when you were outside on a sunny day, you would use 100 speed film, inside 400...same thing with the ISO...the less light you have typically means the higher the ISO needs to be set.
Lastly, it sounds like you are trying to tackle a lot of things at once. Maybe it would be less overwhelming if you started taking outdoor shots (I would recommend late in the day...closer to the golden hour for the pretty lighting) as you learn your camera. Not to say you shouldn't practice on the stage stuff but don't focus on it because it is too advance to really learn if you are just starting out. Photography is a very time consuming hobby but if you are really interested in it then it is very rewarding.
Best of luck in your journey...remember, everyone has to start from scratch at some point.
Wow! I am a bit over whelmed by all the information here. I just went from a basic kodak pocket digital camera to a Nikon D3100; 18-55mm. I've bought nothing else to go along with it yet. I am a mom who wanted better home photos of my children and family and the wife of a musician who would like to start taking better live shots of their shows. So my range of pictures to take is all of the above; indoor, outdoor, on stage, close up, far and action and learning all of the attributes of camera has been a bit daunting. There is so much information that I just don't understand and specs of my camera that i don't know how to set or when to use them. I have read through the manual over and over but the info just hasn't sunk in yet. Your information here has helped some. My biggest problem so far has been the live show shots where I am taking multiple photos in fast succession and half turn out blury. The guys are very interactive with the crowd musicians and use the whole stage when they play, often getting into the crowd. So catching some of these shots are difficult because while I am shooting several pictures per second they're not clear... And what is ISO mean exactly, what is the purpose of this feature? Thank you for any guidance.
I've had great success & positive feedback from breaking rule #4. Probably a third of my portrait work involves telling a story that links a person with either their work or hobby place. I often shoot at 20-45mm and limit DOF by shooting wide open. The trick is to shoot level to avoid horizontal distortion.
On the sheets though...............200 count = expensive?
ALBEIT refuted as were most comments.
I loved the article even more after taking the time to read every comment.
Reading the "tips" from the perspective of classic portrait, everything made great sense.
All the lens comments against the under 50 didn't not seem to hold true against the intent of the article.
Thought too it was great that James took the time to explain what he meant after specific comments.
@Amy F.-presuming you mean a wide open aperture by "wide", say f1.4 or f1.8, you may be limiting your gear's ability to capture mother and daughter sharply. If the plane in focus is only 4 inches and the subjects are one behind the other, there is no way both sets of eyes can be in focus. Stop it down to 2.8, 3.5, even f4 - experiment a little to find what you like. Give a little bokeh and gain tack sharp subject.
Also, remember that the closer you are to a subject the shallower your depth of field. Back out a little and watch that plane of focus grow, so long as it doesn't compromise the perspective of your subject to background, although if this is the problem, I doubt you can even tell what the background is if it's more than 5 feet behind the subject.
Hope this helps! Snippets of wisHdom from an amateur that longs to capture great images!
I agree with the others on #4...esp the never ever part. I am a child photographer and shoot with a Nikon D700. I love the quality and bokeh of the 85mm 1.4, however, I felt too far away from my subjects...esp the little ones. I used to shoot mostly with my 50mm 1.4 but was getting bored with how predictable the images were becoming since it is essentially what the human eye sees. For fun, I asked for a 28mm 2.8 (a very affordable lens) for my birthday and LOVE IT. The pictures are more fun and create a sense of whimsy plus I can get much closer to my subject and the interaction allows me to capture their personality. Another plus is that since the lens is so short, I can hand hold in much lower light situations, which is great since I prefer shooting only with natural light. I appreciate this article and feel it has helpful tips but definitely think that NEVER EVER should be kept from a photographer's vocabulary. You never know what you are going to get when you use a lens for something other than what is "advertised"...that is half of the fun of photography - being creative and an individual.
It seems that there are always people that disagree with what is posted. To me these post serve as guide lines on how to achieve a specific style or type of photography, a starting point. I've learned in Photography classes in college, is that once you know the rules than you can break them. So when it says never ever use any lens under 50mm I see it more as, IF YOU DO THAN UNDERSTAND THAT IT MIGHT NOT GIVE YOU THE DESIRED RESULTS. This post seems more focused on the photographer who doesn't know where to start. I love reading DPS and will continue to do so for all the tiny bits of information that I pick up that I didn't know before. Even the wisest of men can learn from the most foolish (not calling anyone a fool, but that you should never stop learning, cause once you do you shut your mind off and you cease to grow).
Thanks for a great series of tips. I am already a RAW convert. I damaged a lot of JPEG images before realising what was degrading my images (too much manipulation/re-saving). Now I only convert to JPEG when I need to for prinitng or forwarding images, I still retain the original RAW picture with all it's data.
Thanks. When you mention focal length, what sensor size are you talking about?
Question for #1...when shooting wide, with one subject and one focal point, which eye should you put it over? Or should you do bridge of nose? I've had trouble where one eye (where focal point was placed) is sharp but the other is soft. Also, when you are shooting wide with one focal point, but you have more than one subject (mother and daughter say), who's eye do you choose? Again, I've struggled with getting multiple subjects tack sharp when shooting really wide, even when they are on the same plane. A brief description on how you compose a shot like that would be helpful (focus where?, recompose?, etc.). Thanks! Love this site BTW...have learned SOOOO much!
Great tips, but that second photo (with the little girl) is so photoshopped, it shouldn't even be in this article! It looks like she's been spray painted with fake blush and contact lenses. Sorry, I'm throwing the b.s. flag. Beautiful images ARE possible with photoshopping. IMO, it is what separates the professionals from the amateurs.
@Shannon: Thank you for sharing what has taken you years to learn. I would love you thoughts on my work if ever you have the time. www.beachplumphotography.com.
This was a really great article. As someone that's just getting into portraiture (and who has made more than a few mistakes) these tips will really help me out. Thanks for contributing!
Thank you for the lesssons. Ive read all the tips u sent me and i have been reinspired.
Great tips. A love these kinds of posts on this blog. More please!
I'm not a portrait photog but these are great tips! #10 is unusual, never thought of those options as reflectors before.
Unfortunately, no delivery trucks parked on the Acropolis in Athens (at least, not yet).
Great tips! If you want some more tips for out door photography with photo illustrations, click on the link above.
First, let me say that I shoot portraits for pay, but it's not the only source of my income, so I'm what you'd call "semi-professional". That said, outdoor portraits I shoot with a Canon 5D-Mk II, a 24-70 2.8 L, a 70-200 2.8 L II IS, a 580EX II flash, Gary Fong "Cloudy" diffuser and a flash bracket.
I avoid using on-camera flash if I can, because I *despise* flash shadows in my work, and even with the bracket and my diffuser, I still get them on occasion - especially from the jaw onto the neck. If you must use a flash on the camera, avoid "pop up" flash at ALL costs. Get one that sits in the flash shoe on top of the camera. I have yet to find the better of the Fong "Cloudy" flash diffuser for studio quality light on the go, and a flash bracket will put the shadows behind the subject in most cases. Well worth the expense.
My lenses: I want to like the 70-200 more, but I find that the 24-70 stays on my camera 85%+ of the time. It's not quite as sharp, but I find that I prefer working closer. Makes it much easier to communicate with the model or subject when you are trying to do a full length environmental shot if you're not down the block from them.
F/stop: I shoot f/stops between 5.6 and 8.0 for portraits. Why? Because that gives me sufficient depth of field to get both eyes sharp no matter what, while giving me the maximum background blur. 6.3 is my usual favorite. Working fast, I don't always have time to find a way to make everything I need to be sharp in a portrait, sharp, at wider f/stops. If you have the time to slow down and the opportunity to position the subject just right, 2.8 etc is great, but it requires you slow down considerably and be very precise with plane of focus.
Color balance: bring a piece of white paper. Hold it up. Fill the frame. Turn AF off. Shoot paper. (Make sure it's flat.) Then use the image for custom wb. Cost: Nil.
Exposure: You can meter on a lot of free things and get accurate exposure. The blue sky, for example. Most grass. You can meter on Caucasian skin and adjust by +1. You can meter on plain ol' cardboard, too. The unprinted side of cereal boxes work fine. Generally, unless you're filling the frame with the metering subject, use spot metering mode. Or, you can just use Matrix metering, and adjust for the lighting conditions.
1. Master your camera. Read the manual a dozen times, and then read it again. You should be comfortable with knowing how to make your camera do anything it can do without slowing down or looking it up.
2. Master exposure. Once you have done that, the world is your oyster. You can turn day into night and night into day and everything in between. Properly exposed images also tend to have much better saturation, richer colors and more "pop".
3. Choose one portrait lens, shoot it till the cows come home, and master it.
4. If using a flash, favor a flash diffuser and bracket unless you specifically want to produce an image that lacks the results these tools give you. Proper flash work will make people drool at how good the results are if you know when, where and how to use it.
5. Shoot RAW + JPEG, and shoot it right IN CAMERA. Then you have the backup of RAW if you need it, but can just drop it out of camera, slap a copyright watermark on it, and print/publish. Redundancy, insurance and speed: the best of all worlds.
6. Train yourself to notice everything in the camera's view BEFORE you snap the shutter. Look at your subject. Look at your background. Make adjustments as necessary. THEN snap the shutter. Stray hairs, hands out of place, wrinkled dresses, telephone poles, power lines, stray branches, signs - all these are easily avoided if you consider the the final image before you snap the shutter.
7. Humans like angles, so angle the body. In probably 80% of the portraits I shoot, I have the subject tilt their and turn their head to one side or the other to some degree. In almost 100%, I have them facing their torso at about a 45 degree angle to the camera. In about 50%, I have them looking off to the side of the camera (a couple feet to either side of me). It really makes the difference.
8. Learn to capture genuine emotions. This is a combination of timing and knowing how to evoke the responses and expressions you want without directly asking for them. Want your subject to smile? Make them laugh. Kind of hard not to smile when they're laughing. And how do you make them laugh? Tell a joke, and laugh at it yourself. They'll usually take the cue of laughing when you laugh. Or, you can "snipe" the best expressions. I did a shoot yesterday with a girl who I told a joke to and made her laugh, but I didn't shoot when she thought I would. I waited until the smile had faded about 2/3rds from her face instead. Why? Genuine expression. Sure the smile was *mostly* genuine, but she was expecting me to take the shot when she smiled, so it was not entirely natural. What I got by waiting another 1.5 seconds was a natural, contemplative look, with the hint of a smile. A portrait with a genuine expression is always a better seller than one with any other kind, in my experience. And remember, the eyes and mouth both need to be considered to know whether the expression is genuine and natural. If the eyes are not smiling, but the mouth is, it's not a smile. The eyes lead the emotion.
9. Learn to read expressions, too, and pay close attention to them. Fire the shutter when the expression on the subject's face "says" what you want it to say. Happy? Having fun? Contemplative? Curious? Delighted? Wistful? All these and more can make for wonderful portraits.
10. Prefer shade, but don't forget to consider the background. Shade is wonderful, but when the background is blown out, it's not much good unless you did it on purpose. Also, avoid dappled splotches of sunlight on the subject if you place them in shade, as these will blow out and usually look terrible. Also be careful to make sure your subject isn't looking into the sun, because they'll squint. Squinty eyes bad.
11. If you can, get a 5-in-1 diffuser at least 24" circular and find someone to assist you by holding it. Gold tone is wonderful for warming up skin, and the translucent white can be used as a beautiful studio quality diffuser for close ups and quarter length shots, with the sun coming through it. My diffuser is 3' x 4' and definitely requires an assistant. Not much use on windy days, but if I have to shoot in flat out noonday sun, I have my assistant hold the white diffuser between the subject and the sun, and then I shoot close in, with as wide an aperture as I think I can handle. The diffuser can be part of the background at the same time, too.
12. Know your area. Know what makes a good background, and know where such places can be found. Know the light characteristics for those areas for all times of day, and know how to get your shot no matter what time of day the subject is being photographed. Know how to be safe getting to and from those locations, and remember that too much background blur will negate the value of even the best background.
13. Learn to see color casts. The image at the top of the article, for instance, has a horrible blue color cast. If you can see them, you can avoid them much more easily in camera.
14. Follow the Rule of 3rds for body placement if you're doing an environmental shot, and feel free to use it for eyes only on closer shots. Not a hard fast rule, but definitely useful. I typically place the body to one side and one or both eyes where two "thirds" would intersect in one corner. For face only, or close-ups, I usually center the head and put the eyes on the top "third" line, sometimes have each one at the corner "thirds" intersection points.
15. To master portraiture and develop your own style, study the work of everyone who does it who you can find, and figure out what they do that you like, and how they did it.
16. Practice, then critique. Critique the day you shot it, and then wait a few weeks or months and look/critique again. Find every flaw you can, and then avoid doing what caused that flaw in the future. Ask others to help you critique your work, and look for more experienced photographers especially, even more especially those who do this for a living.
17. Don't be afraid to fill the frame with the subject's face, or even just their eyes alone sometimes.
Great tips James thanx - exactly what I was looking for.
I'm an aspiring self teaching photographer who's recently made the decision to take that leap and immerse myself more in to my photography, particularly portraiture. Coming across your article has been a god send, now just need to put the things I've learnt into practice.
Very good advise. I liked them all, but my favoriet that stands out is your example in #9. Something about the nice blue sky and the subjects angle and look just make it very inviting to me, almost angelic. I bookmarked for future reference.
I sincerely appreciate this article and the advice (presented with some humor!). James, your patience in explaining your rule #4 is saint-like, truly. People who are experienced enough to argue with your advice probably do not really *need* the advice to begin with. I am a complete and utter amateur (as far as actually trying to understand the science of my photography) and it HELPS tremendously to have some straight and narrow rules to follow while I get to know my camera and the relationships between my settings. I also donate my services to those who could not otherwise afford it. So having some great tips works well for me to make the best use of my donated time and to provide my subjects with portraits they will be proud of. There is NOTHING more frustrating as a beginner to get home and find a ton of blurry shots (oh wait, but her left ear is in perfect focus!) because I strayed from the rules without yet having mastered them. LEARN THE RULES FIRST, then go break them. Excellent article!
Thanks for the tips on lighting. Good stuff.
Though I think the focal length can be played with, this was still a great article!
great article with some really good points, I will definitely try the grey card and compass idea. Thanks!
It's articles like this that makes me wish DPS had threaded comments...hell, I even have them on my tiny blog. It would make the conversation so much easier to follow.
Wonderfully helpful article on taking portraits outside!
"A wide-angle lens necessarily is up close, if you're taking a head shot"
"If you use a wide-angle lens to take a head shot, you are constrained to take the shot up-close (which will cause those problems I just mentioned)."
Ken, you've nailed it. For head shots, straight-on, a picture taken from up close exaggerates the nose, wrinkles, and may recede the chin as well (if taken from above center). A wide-angle lens necessarily is up close, if you're taking a head shot.
is a perfect example. You can see how exaggerated the swimmer's nose is - she might even be self-conscious and dislike this photo - but it's a great shot! Because there's so much there than just the face, you don't dwell on facial proportions when you look at it.
I appreciate and enjoyed the majority of your tips and I applaud you for your efforts to help people. The only thing I take issue with is the statement "Never shhot a portrait less than 50mm) Joe McNally is one of the wrolds most reknown portrait photographers and mentions in his website he shhots the majority with wide angle lenses. It is how close you stand andwhat type of portrait you are shooting. For headshots I agree with you, but for so many other portrait styles wide angle works great.
Great tips. I shot a wedding (first time) last weekend, and followed some of these instinctively, but I wish I had read this first!
@ Fp Mulligan, excellent point for everyone with natural landmarks.
@david I personally always leave my camera set on 5400 deg K to simulate daylight film. I Like to see what the light actually would look like when i open the images in PS and do the WB with the gray card from there.
Correction to the compass tip: If you are shooting in an area where you have a large landmark, such as a mountain range, a compass is unnecessary. The landmark should be far enough away that there is no significant shift in direction when you move around in between shots. i.e.- I live in the Denver area, and so I always have the Rockies to the west. Thus, I can always estimate the sun's direction based on the time of day, time of year, and the relative direction of the mountains. The great part about this technique is that it is hardwired into the brain, as landmark based navigation was an essential instinct before the days of maps, and thus intuitive and nearly automatic.
So just a little tip for those of you who weren't Boy Scouts.
I really liked the gray card / white balance tip in #6, but wanted some clarification.
I understand that you use PS to set the neutral gray value based off the card the model holds, but are you also setting up and shooting with a custom white balance during the shoot? Or, are you just shooting on auto white balance mode on location, and then letting PS do all the leg work later?
I guess the question is auto white balance and post processing compensation, or custom white balance on location, and post processing compensation.
Nick, you totally caught me goofing my terms up! Perspective remains constant; it's foreshortening that changes with focal length. D'oh!
joe -- Do you have any examples showing the perspective change in cases where camera position remains constant?
Re: Focal length — it's not the focal length that causes (or prevents) perspective distortion. It's where you stand when you use the lens. If you try to fill the frame with a 35mm lens, you'll be standing a lot closer than if you fill the frame with a 105mm lens; this is what changes the perspective — not the focal length itself.
You can stand back with a 50mm lens, crop in, and get the same perspective as with an 85mm or 105mm lens — at the cost of some resolution.
Sorry, but that's incorrect. A relatively simple raytracing will prove it.
"Perspective distortion", as it is referred to here, seems to actually refer to perspective, or foreshortening, which is based on focal length, and perfectly even across the detector (so no amount of cropping will affect it).
For a salient example, think about the super-zoom views of major league pitchers on the mound. The batter seems to be about 10' in front of the pitcher - massively foreshortened! - but no distortion, which is to be expected for high-quality telephotos.
Like others, I also disagree with "Never ever..."
For people, tis true that close up shots with wide-angles will distort facial images, but not all clients may want a "normal" portrait.
Wide-angle, close up shots of pets make for great pictures.
You forgot one of the best rules. Convert to B&W if the photo is beyond repair.
@EVERYONE Thank you for the compliments. Always appreciated!
@David Marrapese I personally say use the biggest flash you can and diffuse it "somehow" even if that means bouncing off a ceiling or wall.
@cheri, I am using camera raw in CS4, I believe you should have a dropper method in LR2, not entirely sure.
Thanks for all the tips, really appreciate it!
one of the best 'classes' I attended to, thx a lot !!!
This is one of the most informative portrait photography posts I've seen to date. Great stuff! Thanks for the seeds! I would be interested to know what raw post processor you are using that allows you to use an eyedropper to correct color. I use LR2 and, as far as I know, I don't have that option.
I shoot with a Nikon D100 & D200 I use a SB900 Nikon flash and a SB50 DX for a slave when needed.my question Do you believe in using a flash diffuseness on a flash.like the one that comes with all flashes,or the whale tail ,and the list goes on. Paul hogan said a diffuser takes a small flash and makes it smaller, he said he never uses a diffuser,I would like you idea on the subject .
"Any focal length below 70mm can distort your subject, however it doesn't become very noticeable until you are below 50 MM."
This isn't exactly true. Using a wide focal length does not distort your subject. If, when using a wide focal length, you get close enough to your subject to fill the frame, your close distance can cause perspective distortion. If you keep your distance from your subject and crop the image or if you shoot full body or environmental style portraits, focal lengths wider than 50mm are just fine.
These are "tips". Feel free not to follow them or add more to it. Free your "creativity". But for beginners and amateurs these are valuable tips not rules. Thanks for the tips. I myself always bring a reflector and an external flash for fill in lighting when I shoot outdoors.
This is a phenomenal post. There is a fantastic array tips which together make a whole new understanding of how to use a camera out of doors. Many thanks.
James, excelent post so much to learn thank you!
#4 as i read the advice not to take portraits with focal lenght less than 50mm, immediately I reviewed and compare and look for obvious difference that i took last night for my 1 year old son before going to bed I used 20mm focal lenght lock it there actually it was funny distorted and some kind of stretched images as you have to be very close to your subject, but the result that i took last week end during saturday was far better with minimumfocal lenght of 70mm since the lens I used was canon 70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM.
This only proves that taking portraits with not less than 50mm in focal lenght will give you more formal and more natural looking image.
Although as a non pro. photography in general image result still belong to anyones perspective and preference. remember you are the master of your own work.
Great article. I think #4 is a great general rule, but "never, ever" and creativity in photography don't mix. I believe I was reading something from Joe McNally (may have been someone else though) about some photographers using wide-angles and pushing-in close for portraiture.
@Turki Al- Fassam In tip number one I am saying to use the autofocus, not manual, just choose one point. when doing fast subjects you may want to choose the AI-servo focus mode (for Canon, some other mfg's call it dynamic or continuous) and see if you get better results that way. Tip number 4 was definitely designed around portraits that focus on a waist up crop or shoulder up crop. Will get back to you about the gray card tutorial soon.
Thank you! VERY useful article. on the 1# tip are you saying not to use autofocus in portrait? or have to choose one point of focus? if so, I did this before and I had a fuzzy focus. and take along time to focus to the point I want! so I don't find it very useful in shooting portraits especially when you take a photos of very fast moving subjects like children. also the tip #4 you mean the close-up portrait or that focusing on one person, right? cause shooting a portraits using wide lenses needed when you shooting a group of people or if you want to show the hole scene in your frame. I saw amazing portraits results using Canon 24mm f/1.4L but I think I know the swelled look you talked about. Cause I got this result when I tried to take a close-up portrait of my niece with the Sigma 10-20. and it looks really as you said. but not in every situation. and this is the first time I read about using a gray card. is there a tutorial you know explain how to use it in the photoshop?
Thank-you very much for many things to think about. I am a beginner and I like your simplified explanation of the rules.
I finally understand why I need the neutral card.
I have thought to myself that all those focal points were creating disasters (especially with shallow depth of field), but you made it much clearer why and that I should merely make a menu adjustment and stick to one focal point. I **think** that means I will have to center my subject and crop more to get away from that centered subject look.
I for one despite the nay sayers really liked your 50 or 70 or 100mm focal length. I have been shooting too close most of the time, I see that now. Seems to work well with the children who have chubby little heads that don't mind a little swelling... but no adult woman wants to look even 1/2 pound heavier. I will be trying this out immediately.
And the reflection ideas... dang that makes sense. For sure, something to think about.
Thank you for a well written and easy to understand article. And thanks to the nay sayers for posting the links to their spectacular galleries and for helping me to understand even more about what these rules mean.
Fog, shoot outside in fog. It's like a softbox the size of the sky.
I did a jewelry shot outside of a butterfly piece in a model's hands. It was gorgeous, and no set-up time. Nail the white balance and you have the idea way to shoot highly-polished metal and faceted gemstones, not to mention you get gorgeous skin tones.
short enough for me to read and understand ! excellent !
The sunny 16 rule is great if you want to estimate exposure when you are using a camera that does not have a built in meter, or does not have any auto settings or you want to use your camera in 'seat of the pants' mode (switch to manual mode and ignore any metered readings. But using the sunny 16 rule loudly and in public to impress the bystanders is OK even if you don't understand it properly as long as you don't let anyone see the resulting images.
@keith In my opinion yes, senior portraits are a much more traditional product, and I personally would shoot them in a much more traditional manner.
@jared As advanced as our cameras are, reflected readings are not as accurate as incident readings. When using a light meter, gray card, or the sunny 16 rule (in the case of shooting wide open with the sunny 16 rule in place one would just have to do the math, nothing about the sunny 16 statement says you have to stay at ƒ16, it is merely a way to calculate exposure with ones eyes and mind). In camera meters will re-calculate for nearly every shot, and what the camera reads will change based on how much of a specific color is in your image. When you employ a means of incident reading, you are giving yourself a product where the exposure is more consistent, saving alot of time in post production. Note: this will be very obvious when shooting an automobile, if there is a specular highlight from the sun reflecting into the lens and you are shooting on an automatic mode or following the in camera meter this shot will be extremely dark (the specular makes the camera think the image is much brighter than what is the reality).
its somewhat contradictory to say use the sunny16.. but shoot wde open..
i dont see the point of the sunny16.. we have built in light meters.. we're not in the film days anymore.
our results are instant on LCD.
So I guess for shooting senior portraits outside I should use my 70-200 lens more that the 18 -55? I like the 70-200 better anyway.
This is a nice bunch of good advice, but I certainly disagree with #4. I recently ran across portraits taken with 24mm on full-frame body and they were really good, but it is certainly an extreme. I find most of the telephoto portraits rather formal while those on the wide end are more personal or intimate. You also have to consider the purpose of the picture and think about the feel it should have. A little bit of context in a wide angle shot can add a lot to a portrait. 24-35mm on APS is definitely my favorite.
Oh, and sun behind the subjects is the way how to produce some cool flares in the photo. Only you need strobe or maybe reflector could do.
@Distortion There are many types of lens distortion that we have identified here (Perspective, pincushion, barrel, etc) and we can hack it out all day, the amounts of distortion of any kind from 70mm down to about 45 mm are minuscule but are still there in most lenses. Canon L users, if you take a shot at 70mm with the 24-70 2.8L and put it side by side with one done at 70mm with a 70-200 2.8L you will see more distortion in the 24-70 image even though the images were taken at the same focal length.
Art, creativity, street photography, candids, full body shots, even when your stuck in a small room, do what you have to do to get the shot. Just know where the guidelines or rules are before you break them.
First off, what is up with #4? Optical distortion begins at less than 70mm??? (I'm assuming the photographer is working with the assumption of a 1.6x crop camera). This is an exaggeration, imo. If you are using a good 35mm (such as Canon's 1.4L) you are safe, but even with a cheapo 50mm 1.8 lens you aren't in danger of distortion.
New photographers: the exceptions to these artificial rules are often the best shots. By having wider lenses you can contextualize the shot much better and create an atmosphere unreproducible in having a tight 85mm portrait. At the same time, long lenses put that much more focus on the subject, so if that's what you're after, go for it! Just know *why* you're using the focal length you are.
#3 - shoot wide open for nice depth of field. Maybe. Once again, depends on your intent. Also, the wider your aperture the less room for error you have in your focusing. If a wide aperture is your only way of drawing attention to your subject, you should rethink why you've got such a boring shot. There are many ways to do this in photography (leading lines, negative space, the spread of light, calm backgrounds).
hope this helps. remember newbies, never accept never.
well, overall a good 95%-guideline for me!
some of the tipps although are not valid always.
#2 might be correct in 95% of the cases, but sometimes it's nice to have other areas sharp.
@nick I should have clarified, I am basing my statement on a standard definition for portrait when we as photographers are taking an image that is dominated by, and focused on the face. (not full body shots) In these situations with a wide angle we would absolutely have to step in closer.
@Alejandro Another place where i should have had more detail, I was thinking of EXTREME simplicity when I wrote this, things you can do with a camera alone if you don't own a flash. I have seen shotty optics make a choppy bokeh in some aftermarket lenses as well. The number of blades in the canon 70-200 2.8 L IS (9) is what made the decision to spend the extra money easy, the non IS version is only 7 blades.
Always look for ways to break the "rules." rules represent ordinary thinking and give ordinary results. make your own way but always thinking about what you are doing so you can repeat the spectacular.
>>>>> "This is great!" you think to yourself, "this is going to make my life so much easier!" I was wrong… In fact, I was dead wrong.
So very true. When I moved from my 400D to a 40D I was amazed at the learning curve.
Great tips, all. I'll look into getting a cheap white sheet. Wonderful idea.
I also disagree with #4. NEVER is always wrong. I would argue that understanding "rules" and then breaking them consciously is how you find your eye and establishing your style. if you follow these rules religiously, you'll be just like everyone else, and so will your work.
1) You can easily get OoF blur without wide apertures using telephoto lenses. And bokeh doesn't have to be smooth: it depends on the number of blades in the lens diaphragm. It's very easy to defocus with the EF 50mm f1.8 but the bokeh is harsh.
2) Raw is only useful if you PP. Otherwise, JPEG can be useful for fast continuous shooting. It comes down to personal taste, I suppose, but RAW doesn't automagically create perfect pictures.
I actually use WhiBal cards for my white balance, rather than generic gray cards. I keep a small one clipped to me, and a larger one in my bag. They're more consistent for getting accurate white balance than grey cards. No matter which you choose they're a must. They make post correction much, much easier.
Good, well written article. I knew most of the tips, but the images were invaluable in giving me some inspiration.
Thanks for sharing these wonderful tips. I am learning something here.
@James -- The appropriateness of a focal length is relative to different factors. For example, a full-body shot or waist-up environmental portrait will be unwieldy to shoot at 105mm. For example, the image at the top of this post was made with a moderate wide angle focal length, judging by the EXIF data.
But even for head shots, the traditional, as you say, rule of using longer lenses for portraits isn't a bad one, but it's important to understand that it isn't the focal length that's the problem -- it's using a wider length and then stepping in to the fill the frame. If you're aware of any data showing that perspective distortion can result from a lens change that is not accompanied by a camera position change, I would love to see it.
I just had a mental "lightbulb" moment. Thank you so much for the detailed explanation of the sunny 16 rule. I have read numerous explanations but never quite got it before. This could revolutionise my thought pattern. Gotta love the lightbulb moments.
Thanks heaps, and DPS - keep 'em coming.
I'm not a total beginner when it comes to photography. The sunny 16 is one of those things I've come across in the past and have always been curious about how it works.
Shooting with f8 doesn't affect your other settings, since it's meant to be used on cloudy days. When there's less light, you have to open up your aperture to compensate. If you want to keep using your f16 on a cloudy day, you have to change your ISO accordingly and increase it one stop.
Gray Card, White Card and a solid black, Need one Cheap? Checkout the paint counter at the hardward store. Color chips are free.
Sorry I haven't gotten to these yet, been running around today but I'm here now!
@Rick RE: gray card exposure. Just fill the frame with nothing but gray, use manual mode and line up the exposure... when you take the gray card away the meter will go a little screwy but you will have a true incident light reading. if your shooting a lot in one day, I would suggest doing this about every 30 min.
@nathan There are some cheap, cardboard gray cards that are Kodak knock-offs and sell for 6.00-10.00 USD, I have found them in my local camera store, at last visit they are still $5.95 over the counter, may be a little tough to find based on your location. the cheap card is MFG by "Delta"
@kuoirad Not neccessarily, I was merely suggesting you buy the least opaque sheet you can find.
@Marcus RE: Sunny 16... If you break down your exposure into single, full ƒ-stops it will be easier to understand. (eg. ƒ2.8,ƒ4,ƒ5.6,ƒ8,ƒ11,ƒ16,ƒ22 and 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, etc.) On a cloudy day you can usually play the "open it up 2 ƒ-stops" game... anywhere you wish. you could either change your apature value to an ƒ8, or slow your shutter speed down, or increase your ISO speed to 800. It is generally my advise to use the aperture value to avoid slow shutter speeds. The sunny 16 is a way to achieve a baseline, from there you just do a little math... for every full ƒ-stop you open the lens to get to your desired depth of field, you simply increase your shutter speed the same amount of full ƒ-stops. if on a cloudy day you are set to ƒ8, 1/125, ISO 100 and you want your target aperture value to be ƒ5.6 (one full ƒ-stop less) you would increase your shutter speed to 1/250 which is one full ƒ-stop higher to compensate.
I'll be back soon, keep 'em coming!
I shoot almost exclusively outside, and almost always in Oregon where this is 90% chance of clouds no matter what season it is! Thanks for the tips. I'm going on an outdoor maternity shoot in SoCal tomorrow, and the part about pollution and the possibility for cloud cover tomorrow give me alot to thing about between today and tomorrow. Wish me luck!
I'd also be interested in learning about using your flash on a sunny day for fill light. I have a 40D and the 430 EX II which I've been able to use with a decent amount of success, but I'd like to get a good understanding of settings and stuff to use it more confidently and effectively.
One additional tip on cloudy day shooting, you still should look for shade to prevent the main source of your light being overhead. Or, use a silver reflector to bounce light into the eye sockets of the people you are photographing. Otherwise, your subjects eyes will be wide open, and a good 2 stops underexposed due to the shadow cast by their browline.
I'm interested in learning more about the "Sunny 16" rule. I understand how it works if you're shooting at f/16, but as the article mentions, if you're shooting at f/8, how does that change your ISO and shutter speed? I've tried reading up on it but have never really fully understood.
Great article. I had never heard if the sunny ƒ/16 rule, but it's an interesting concept. What else do people use for cheap, makeshift reflectors? I'm a student, so I'm on a limited budget.
Great advice, and it was an enjoyable read. I especially found the comments about cloudy days interesting because generally, almost everywhere you read, all the advice given on cloudy days is to shoot like crazy. He gave some interesting things to think about.
Oh, and I bought my gray card at a local camera place for seven or eight bucks.
Ilan -- good example! As with most "rules" -- I think the point must be to learn why it's a rule first, so that you know how to break it. I do portraits of a local improv group using the widest lenses I have, because they want to look as weird and funky as possible.
$5.95 for a gray card? Where? Cheapest I've found online looks like $17 new or $12 off of eBay... and there seem to be a good handful that are more expensive (cir. $30).
Re: Focal length -- it's not the focal length that causes (or prevents) perspective distortion. It's where you stand when you use the lens. If you try to fill the frame with a 35mm lens, you'll be standing a lot closer than if you fill the frame with a 105mm lens; this is what changes the perspective -- not the focal length itself.
You can stand back with a 50mm lens, crop in, and get the same perspective as with an 85mm or 105mm lens -- at the cost of some resolution. Not an ideal solution, but a lot cheaper than buying a new lens, especially if you don't do enough portraiture to justify the cost of a new lens.
Those are great tips. I especially like #11. That's the kind of info I would have liked to have had a few days ago, as I was in that exact situation. Great read.
I totally disagree with section 4. Never, ever ? why not?
Is there anything wrong with that?
Just thought about, 28mm on DX is actually 42mm, but still.... Never, ever sounds too harsh.
Interesting advice. I especially noticed the 50mm / 70mm advice. I suppose it's worth adding that this varies a bit depending on your camera's crop factor. After all, 35mm is "normal" on a Nikon DX camera (1.5x crop factor), which by definition is the same field of view as your eyes -- so, perspective distortion will appear only in the amount that we expect to see. But, longer focal lengths are generally nicer for that compressed depth and bokeh instead.


text:
Welcome to Across the Pond - Marketing Transformed
We were discussing what we wanted to get out of this and it's sharing some of the learnings and principles and war wounds that we have experienced to do transformation successfully.
Intro: Chris and Samuel -40 years of Marketing Transformation experience
Our philosophy to succeed in digital transformation
Having the right mindset and process
Why marketing needs to take the lead in organisation transformation
Lessons from Absolute Radio and Tassimo
The first episode!
This has been something we've been talking about for a while and it's nice to just press the record button.
Yes it is indeed and hopefully this is a series and set of shows that folks will really get into and we can share our wisdom here for you the audience. Keep responding to questions that come in and points that you have and feedback that you give us, because we want to keep this going and make it valuable and interesting. So, this isn't just going to be another show out of thousands out there hopefully this is one that floats to the top of your minds and keeps us hungry, keeps us at it because we're excited.
It All Started With…" Next Please!"
Yeah well said. So, brand new and what we wanted to explore in our podcast series Across the Pond is issues close to our heart. Around digital transformation, and marketing's role within it. We also want to explore the differences in approaches and experiences between America and the UK (hence the title). This is something that myself and Sam have experience in for many many years now, we've known each other for about 20 years, we met at a large grocery retailer in the UK called Safeway, now called Morrisons. That was back in the 90's I believe?
Yep, yep.
Safeway was ahead of the curve at the time in terms of some of their processes, some of the initiatives where it used loyalty cards, category management, personalisation. Really customer centric, 'shop and go' was an initiative that Safeway brought in as well.
We learnt a lot. There were some brilliant minds there, a big set of alumni that come from Safeway and in our respective role ever since we've been driving transformation, and we wanted to share those learnings with you. Whether you're starting out on your career or you're a seasoned professional looking for inspiration or empathy (or sympathy) we've got a lot that we'd like to share, some of our most recent experiences that we're both working on at the moment. And I think what unites us is that role that marketing and the transformation of organisations and the role technology has played at driving that change.
For example, a key part of my role after Safeway was at Telco, and then a Global Media publisher, then I launched Absolute Radio and then I was a Marketing Sales Director at Guardian and moved on to various private equity backed organisations after that, some in gaming, some in wine, but all of them were intent on driving change. And although some of my roles have been international, I stayed UK focused but you took the move to the states didn't you?
Yeah and listening to your journey it's similar for me, In terms of the roles I'm in recently, I'm working in a marketing capability and digital transformation role. My career's been driven by my mindset of being curious and saying yes when I could have said no. And standing up the growth of departments, creating capability and creating pathways for the new and often fighting the resistance of the status quo. So, I think of it as a mosaic, for me I'm putting pieces of the mosaic together, I started my career off in the UK and Ireland. Starting off in music retail, back in the day there was a company called HMV, I think it's still around in the UK and a few other places, when record stores hadn't been disrupted and transformed and now only a few of them survive, and then I joined Safeway, where we both met in a variety of roles, and I was privileged to be able see the evolution of retail, because consumers were becoming discerning and the assortments were changing things like organic, online and more international flavours.
Safeway for all you US based listeners is the same as a grocery retailer in the US and it went out to the UK about 50 years ago and has subsequently been acquired. But I did some time in retail then moved to the Consumer Goods side with Gillette and P&G and what excited me was being able to travel and live overseas, so I moved to Switzerland for a couple of years and then Germany for about 3 years in global branding roles. That's taken me to apparel, to food and technology and appliances. My wife and I even had our own entrepreneurial business for a while, it was an ecommerce store, a woman's apparel retailer Boutique Larrieux. All those inputs pulled together and synthesized has helped give me a set of philosophies. But constantly having to break and let go of the past and embrace new things as modern marketers should do. So, that's kind of the quick journey of how I got on this show with you Chris.
Real Life Lessons
Yeah that's good, between the two of us we have 40 years of experience but this isn't a nostalgia trip there's plenty of fresh ideas on the subject that we're hugely passionate about and were making sure were keeping this very real and relevant.
We were discussing what we wanted to get out of this and its sharing some of learnings and principles and war wounds we have experienced in order to do transformation successfully. If we start from the beginning when we both met at Safeway, although it was function led, it was organised around the traditional format as most marketing companies were in those days. You had the Direct Marketing Team the above Marketing Team, but Safeway transformed itself to focus on the customer. I think it was a bold move at the time but was something very early on that captured my imagination; this need to be customer focused and it's stuck with me ever since and it is much about a mindset as it is strategy, and when the majority of the marketing world was seeing it through a different lens. It taught me an important lesson about the power of conviction and then the team of the Safeway Marketing Department and the Commercial Department have all gone on to have some very successful careers.
I think that striving ahead, being the forerunner for change quite often when you're doing that on your own it is a powerful thing.
Interestingly, all the brilliant minds you think in the world can't stop the company from failing if you don't fix your basics first. Safeway in the end suffered from a few problems around range, and product and ended up being taken over. I think that's an important point that what we want to make sure is that we're not just preaching an ideal version here, this is very much about practical steps- how do you roll your sleeves up as well as strategise to make sure that we are covering how we fix the basics as well as how we dream about the future as well.
So Sam, what's your biggest learning do you think around transformation in your current role?
Where can you see those learnings or mistakes in play?
I think one of the things I spend a lot of time on is injecting the humanity to actually drive the transformation and generate growth. Advancing capabilities in the most critical areas is what I see as critical to this modern marketing mindset and succeeding in transformation, my philosophy is creating remarkable growth around experiences because that changes our behaviour and the culture of the organisation transforming performance for abundant attainment. So, those words of abundant and transformation and behaviour change is all critical to being successful in this space so it's the ability to sustain it over a longer period of time and not just this one-and-done aspect and how digital transformation fits in. It's a challenge of wrestling with the performance marketing it's the brand building debate that's been going on for quite a while now I think it's just a flawed approach because you need to do both there's a lot of solid effort that proves doing both is critical.
Marketers are definitely being threatened by budgets becoming tighter and you've got to prove that you drive value and sales but ultimately you have to let go of the 'set it and forget it mindset'. That's one of the things I spend a lot of time inspiring and trying to embed in the business: you need to be able to do the test and run approach and that's means you can't write a brief and roll out a campaign for 10 weeks and just let it go, you've got to invest in real time decision making and if it's not working, then you need a plan A,B,C and a D and keep going so you just can't set it and forget it.
Yes, you've got to have a vision of what's it's going to be but you have to use those data points coming in to actually take action. No longer is it about spending 2 weeks building the 'powerpoint deck' to present you've got to be using that data to optimise and improve. Marketers really have to let go and rewire their brains from how they used to think about marketing and think about it in a new way.
Here's a tip for those listening in right now to implement right now: the person closest to the data gets to make the decision and not the most important person i.e. the VP or CMO or even the president who could actually be a bit clueless about marketing or what's going on, the person closest to the data should get the call and have that decision making authority and that's a huge behavioural shift in organisations and marketing as I see it today.
Yeah and we will come back to that in future episodes, talking about that culture and mindset change and also which organisations are doing that well.
I think the important point is that we want to affect this change for both new entrants coming into the marketing sphere as well as the C suite as well. One of the things I think drives both of us is practitioner role. Understanding what it's really like in the trenches, we've both worked our way up to the roles that we're in now and I think an important part of that is that acceleration; the unlocking talent and it's about serving a greater and more informed and curious customer.
Sometimes we underestimate how far ahead our customers actually are from us, the marketing professionals, and we have to be there at the forefront using the best knowledge in the organisation, which quite often can be the lower rank to help inform us about how our users are driving their usage via the media or whatever other manner.
How do we leverage data and insight in the customer journey and how do we communicate with customers as their marketing channels evolve? You have to find your own transformation journey as well; different industries or scale up enterprises that are at different points will have their own different understanding of what they need to achieve and what that transformation is and it is our role to think about how do we make the biggest impact within that.
The Hurdles of Transformation
I think there's some simple ways to overcome those challenges to put into practice that shows that transformation journey you talked about.
One key one is you need to have a marketing process with a single score card. So, you must move from having multiple or inconsistent processes and have one common score card within a brand business planning approach. Still nimble and align efforts, I'll be controversial here and say there is a need to push back in the tendency for the CFO to actually drive the marketing plan, marketers need to speak out and frame the process. So, it's packed with the customer journey and customer experience not just a margin and profit-centred discussion where all you have is a bunch of spread sheets and P&L's filled in but no real understanding of the consumer or customer and no real benefit or service being provided for them that actually adds value. So, I think that's one of the key things, single score cards.
The second one is having the right skills in the right place at the right time so you've got to move from this disperate training and capabilities in different places and things varied as roles change or demands of the business change. You've got to close those gaps you have to have capability development that's easy and applicable to apply to the day job, so not 3-day classroom training, you've got to design things to be on the job and practical that can be coached and developed.
The third thing is to keep it simple. With all this change, all the demands and all the ambiguity you've got to make it simple to link the competencies and development of the individuals or the organisation to a behavioural change that drives growth. So its simplicity, having the right skills in the right place, the single score card which is not purely a CFO driven agenda, are the three ways to make transformation successful for the organisation
I always say that transformation is about moving the organisation from point A to point B and that's where I do my best work. It's transformation at that early stage activity and whether that's working as a CMO at the Guardian or Virgin I've always been attracted by the new the different but it has to have a view that creates something better, I think sometimes you can be attracted by the shiny that doesn't necessarily create something better.
Interestingly, some of the organisations I've worked with very early on in my career have relatively stayed and they didn't really respond quickly to market forces. Sometimes they didn't do that because they didn't necessarily have to because they were in a strong leadership position, they thought they were better 'defenders' than they were. But some of those organisations, where they were constantly striving, constantly looking ahead, constantly looking at how they could optimize performance, constantly thinking a little about how to get further along the curve, they're the ones who have actually gone on to do much more and that have been incredibly successful and that's also what's really appealed to me as well, working out how you drive that change and it's a sustainable level of change as well not just a peak of activity.
So, if you had to pick three words Sam to define transformation, what would they be?
Three words I would pick? Progress, change and optimism. I'd love to take credit for that however I did blatantly steal that from Seth Godin, which is something I think he came up with in his most recent book.
If you're gonna steal, he's a pretty good person to steal from.
Hopefully he won't sue me for plagiarism, I did give him credit here!
Making progress by leaning in and looking how to let go of the things you've done in the past, is embracing the new technology. What's the role of that plan, how many people are adopting it? There's a stat out there that says 60% of people aren't using 70% of the stuff. You've got to close that gap, I don't mean on that stat, but there is a truth behind most marketing technology not being used and leveraged. You've got to make that progress, close that gap, get people adopting and embracing it and working it into their processes.
So, the optimism piece is something that right now, especially if you're in a packaged goods area, is perhaps a bit pessimistic. To think of your markets' being eroded by competitors and new entrants, resources influx, market-place influx, legislation coming in, GDPR is impacting how you do things, being optimistic isn't being deluded, it's really seeing what the benefits are from these changes and how to champion and accelerate and be part of that change. Change is the only constant in life so you can no longer in my opinion be a general manager and be removed from the marketing. You have to be in it. You can't be above the technology or be behind the technology or just be orchestrating from the sidelines- I really believe you have to be in it striving to master some of that stuff.
You don't have credibility as a leader giving performance reviews for people who would run rings around you with the actual Search Engine Skills, Digital Marketing Skills, Innovation Skills or the Insight Capabilities or Mastering and Analysing the data. All of that stuff you have to know and be able to do yourself so that change applies to the inside world but also internally how you digest that and how you apply that to work you do on a regular basis. Chris, what would you say are some of the biggest marketing changes you have been responsible for?
Well one that comes to mind is a great story; its Absolute Radio. This all launched in about 2007, I think. It was striving to be different- to cut itself some differentiation, away from the middle of the road stations that were in the UK. It was all about real guitar music and strong writing as well. I took the role- it was myself and 3 other directors and they bought me on board and said 'we have one hundred days to make this transformation', it was Virgin Radio at the time and I took it when it was funded by the Times of India and the brief was a challenging one it was really exciting how did transform this to a brand new station with a brand new playlist, brand new ethos and everything else it contained in one hundred days.
The vision was creating a multi channelled media company with audio at the heart. The real interesting point was that there was a hundred strong employees who were quite happy being Virgin Radio and it was a fantastic brand it was a great role and we realised very early on that to have any hope of achieving this in one hundred days, this was a hearts and minds mission, we needed every single person in that organisation to be absolutely passionate about this and that was an important part for me, that so much of this was about mindset, creating a vision, a shared sense of purpose, collaboration, creating something everyone could believe in and really identifying what that was and really doing for it with both feet. It was an amazing time, was so exciting and interesting for us to see that progress as we did. But all those three points you talked about earlier are absolutely on the money there.
That one hundred day challenge is definitely a forcing factor, I probably don't have something as time constrained, but in a similar way to thinking about simplicity; progress and change when there isn't a playbook, there's an example that stands out to me.
I was working for Gillette at the time owned by P&G and we were partnering with big companies Kraft and a company that is subsequently acquired by Phillips' an appliances organisation. You have to imagine three big companies that are working with different organisation cultures, different needs, different geographies and consumer needs so that was the complexity I was dealing with. It was for the Tassimo coffee product.
I was standing up a joint venture very early on in my career, progress was really about compiling and collaborating with all of these different interests, different P&L's, different goals and KPIs and creating the score card and common approach, and managing that complexity and what we meant by different things. When we'd say distribution in one company it may mean a shipment, it may mean a sale, or what's in the warehouse so we had to find a common language and common approach and manage that complexity that was happening. We had French, Italian, Germany and UK coffee tastes and these consumers are all very different. So driving to action and corralling the resources without a playbook was the key challenge and the change was driving that focus on the scorecard and how we were making progress, we were able to ultimately nail that and have that common goal so we launched in 5 countries and with number one market share in three months in the UK.
So this was all about transforming in a joint venture when there wasn't a playbook, one of the toughest tests I've had in my career but a lot of those principles you have shared were common to that example as well and having the fortitude to stand up and lead and not shirt that responsibility was critical and was key there.
Yeah and you know we will reflect on this in the series as we go along because so many of these themes absolutely paramount that leadership. Leadership can come from anywhere again Absolute Radio that leadership came from all areas of the organisation from the DJs, the Producers, the Production Team, Marketing Team, Digital Team and so on. And another thing reflecting on what you were saying there is that simplicity sometimes it's not clear what the playbook is, it's not clear in terms of what's been done before but it's being really focused on what this task is and believing you can achieve it counts for so much.
So, Sam, first episode but I think it's been a great intro, there's been a lot of themes we want to carry in exploring and we hope you enjoyed it.
Three Keys Themes
Three key things from today's show for me:
Transformation I'd as much about the leadership philosophies, the mindset the resilience and sense of urgency needed. Its leading that change, leading that change is the key contributor.
Mindset is not just a buzz word it's a wat it working that is future focused and innovation set and trick and we will talk more about mindset in the future.
Finding common ground and a common message, articulating a vision to unlock talent and the people and ideas is a growth driver. Creating that culture is so critical that when you're reporting your financial results a lot of companies are talking about the culture of their organization and how that's driving success and momentum. Gone are the days where you can simply focus on the top talent and expect to succeed or win, you've got to engage all of your employees, all your resources and finding that common ground and common approach is a key driver of that. Those are the three things that I think people can take away from listening to this first episode.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Flags around the state will be lowered to half-staff Tuesday, in honor of state Sen. Linda Scheid, who died of cancer June 15.
Gov. Mark Dayton ordered the flag action and said he will attend a memorial for Scheid Tuesday afternoon in Brooklyn Park.
Senator Scheid was a leader on many issues, including consumer protection, education equity, campaign finance reform, organ donation, tax fairness, business regulatory reform, economic development, and health care reform — most notably ensuring that oral chemotherapy drugs are affordable and accessible. Her commitment to public service was demonstrated throughout her life, from her service as a Peace Corps volunteer, community advocate, parks and recreation worker, substitute teacher and lawmaker.
The memorial, from 4 to 8 p.m., is at the Brooklyn Park Community Activity Center.


text:
Dr. Jon Klein,
principal horn
Jon Klein is Professor of Horn and Coordinator of Brass Studies at BYU-Idaho, where he is a member of the faculty brass and wind quintets. His current assignment is to teach the horn studio and conduct chamber music. His university students have been accepted to prestigious graduate schools and have placed at a variety of performance competitions. Prior to joining the faculty at BYU-Idaho, Klein held adjunct appointments at Whitman College and Walla Walla University. He has performed with the Utah Symphony, Utah Chamber Orchestra, Utah Festival Opera, Spokane Symphony, Boise Philharmonic, Walla Walla Symphony, and Billings Symphony. He has also been featured as a soloist with the BYU-Idaho Symphony Orchestra, BYU-Idaho Symphony Band, University of Utah Wind Ensemble and the Walla Walla Symphony. Klein studied music performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Boston University. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in performance with a minor in conducting from the University of Utah. Jon resides in Rexburg with his wife Rebecca, also an accomplished horn player, and their two sons.


Summer is here wahoo!!! Kids are out of school and getting restless. What to do?!?! You've already had 50 playdates, gone to park a least 70 times and taken them for ice cream so many times you should buy stock in 31 Flavors. So how about a little road trip? Here are some tips to organize your car before your summer road trip? Check out this video with some of my favorite items to help. And enjoy your summer!


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In 1861, the three founding families of St. Patrick parish gathered together for Mass once a month. Fr. James Shields celebrated the Mass in parishioners' homes for the first twelve years.
In November of 1877, St. Patrick's Church of Parkersburg was started and in the spring of 1878 it was dedicated. The original church was erected at the cost of $1,300 and was debt free at the time of dedication.
Parkersburg was not mentioned in the Catholic Church Directory until 1888, and it was only the following year that a resident pastor arrived.
The rectory was built around 1895. The priest living at Parkersburg also took care of New Hartford. Mass was said every other Sunday at each place. It was not until 1910 that Mass was said in both communities every Sunday.


Individual pedals are back in style in a big way. With them is also a need to keep them organized and securely mounted for transportation. As an electric guitar player myself and a gear nerd I am always taking a glance at what people have for equipment. After seeing the same style of neatly organized pedalboard coming from the same great looking flight case I decided to find its source, which leads me to Pedaltrain.com. The first thing that surprised me was though I had seen their equipment in use by guitar legends like John Mayer and Peter Frampton they don't have pictures of them on their site or even artist endorsements at all. They want to be an every person kind of company and it turns out all those famous people that use Pedaltrain pedalboards actually bought them just like everyone else does, because they wanted to. To me, that speaks volumes.
For the review I took a look at two models of pedalboard, the larger angled design of the Novo 24 and a smaller flat design in the Metro 16. First off, all Pedaltrain boards are made from high-quality aluminum that is extremely light and remarkably sturdy. The Metro 16 is the exact same size as the pedal board I have been using for years so I was interested to see how my pedals would fit, mostly because of the rail design of the Pedaltrain boards would seem to offer less capacity. However, after working the puzzle for a few minutes, I was surprised to find I actually fit more pedals and not less. The rail system also offers the ability to run your cables from underneath, which cleans up the look of the board considerably.
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Flekkefjord is a municipality in Vest-Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Lister. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Flekkefjord. The villages of Sira, Gyland, Rasvåg, Kirkehavn, and Åna-Sira are located in Flekkefjord.
Flekkefjord is the westernmost municipality of the geographical region of Sørlandet. Flekkefjord is approximately midway between the cities of Kristiansand and Stavanger, located along European route E39 and the Sørlandet Line.
The municipality is located in southwestern Vest-Agder county, along the border with Rogaland county and the North Sea to the southwest. It is bounded by Sokndal and Lund municipalities (in Rogaland county) to the west across the river Sira, by Sirdal municipality to the north, and by Kvinesdal municipality to the east.
The town of Flekkefjord is located near the southern coast of the municipality in a fjord. It straddles the narrow sound which connects the Flekkefjorden to Grisefjorden. The port is ideal due to the tiny difference in tides experienced here. This is a result of its close proximity to the amphidromic point outside Eigersund.
The lakes Kumlevollvatnet, Lundevatn, Selura, and Sirdalsvatnet are located in Flekkefjord. The southern coast is dominated by the Listafjorden and Fedafjorden with the large inhabited islands of Hidra and Andabeløyna lying in the Listafjorden.