Comments on: portrait photographers, question?

By: teesquareddesign

teesquareddesign — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:01:59 +0000

I shoot raw because you can always change ANYTHING about it… it’s pure, unchanged, perfect for editing. I used to only shoot jpg until i was exposed to raw and what a change in my images… a-m-azing!
lighting is another whole can of worms.. what kind of photos are you doing? go to strobist.com i have a 580ex on my 5d camera which is fine for now… however, eventually i will be buying alienbees and pocketwizards but not anytime soon
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pro photographer

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:15:59 +0000

Shoot film.. Like use the sun.
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By: owner_of_a_lonely_CAR

owner_of_a_lonely_CAR — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:37:59 +0000

Just shoot JPG. I’ve shot it and enlarged it (using 6 MP Canon 10D, Fuji S2, and Nikon D70) easily up to 20×30.

As for lighting, use umbrellas for starter (or bounce flash if you don’t have them yet). The soft-box are nice but not much improvement over umbrellas.

I prefer the outdoors photography over indoors but nature is harder to control so we shoot indoors more often.

When you experiment try using as much manual controls as possible. That way when something go wrong (or right) you know what happened. Use manual white balance (or at least set the camera in Flash or sunlight if possible). That alone will make the color more consistent. And for portraits, the skin tones will be much more "prettier" when properly balanced.
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Again it isn’t so much about equipment as much as technique (your know how).

Good Luck.
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By: fhotoace

fhotoace — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:56:59 +0000

Unless the client is spending the money for a 20 x 24 inch print, then shooting RAW is not necessary.

I shoot glamour, so I use much more dramatic lighting than a portrait photographer. I use one light .. sometimes bounced against an umbrella, through an umbrella or using a soft-box.

I usually shoot fine/large … you really need both settings to make the jpegs large enough to capture all the detail.
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Glamour photographer

By: Mr. Knowitall

Mr. Knowitall — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:13:59 +0000

Raw is better, or even BMP. The file is bigger but you can do more with it. JPG fine is not bad, though, but it’s a compressed format, like MP3, so you do lose some sharpness and detail.

The best lighting for ‘formal’ portraits is three lights. A main light (called the ‘key light’), to one side, 30 to 45 degrees off the line from camera to subject. A ‘fill’ light, slightly less bright, on the other side, to fill in the shadows from the key light, and a ‘back’ light coming from just behind the subject. Sometimes the back light is called a ‘hair’ light because it makes the hair shine. The back light also separates the subject from the background.
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