(upbeat bright music)
- Hi, my name is Agent Taylor.
And today, I'm going to show you some basics
when it comes to portrait photography.
You might be familiar with portraits like school photos,
or studio shots, but there are many styles,
including family, or group portraits,
environmental, and even street portraits.
No matter which style you're after,
it's important to use the subject,
lighting, and background to tell a story,
and to capture the emotion of the moment.
And since technology has advanced,
you can even take portraits
with some smart phones, and point-and-shoot cameras.
Pretty cool.
All right, today,
we'll be working with a mirrorless camera
and some accessories
to take your portrait photography skills to the next level.
Here's what you'll need.
A camera that supports removable lenses,
a lens, reflectors, a light stand,
a diffuser, a flash, a ring light,
and white balance cards.
Let's get into it.
First, grab your camera.
I'm using the Sony a7 III.
Then, attach your lens.
The Sony FE 85 millimeter 1.8 telephoto prime lens
is what I'll be using.
I'll start by lining up the dots on the lens
and camera body.
Inserting gently, and then do
about a one quarter turn clockwise or counterclockwise,
depending on your camera
until the lens locks.
You'll notice my dots are white,
but yours could be another common color
like red, for instance.
Now, prime lenses have a fixed focal length,
and can't be zoomed in or out.
Instead, you zoom in with your feet
by moving closer or farther away from the subject.
Let's go ahead and walk our camera into position.
There we go.
This feels good to me.
Another benefit of prime lenses
is that they generally have a sharper image.
That's because they're built to work
at a single focal length,
and don't have to include internal components
to make zooming possible.
You can find the focal length on your lens
which comes in handy when picking the right one.
Mine is an 85 millimeter focal length.
The focal length will tell you
how much of the scene will be captured by the camera,
and how large different parts of the image will look.
The focal length also impacts
the shape of the subject's face and the background.
So do some experimenting
until you find the look you want.
Now, let's adjust three main exposure settings
for our portrait considerations.
Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.
Start by verifying your camera is in manual mode.
You can see by this icon that mine is here.
First, we'll start with aperture.
This Sony G Master lens
has a maximum aperture of 1.8.
For reference, the lower the aperture number,
the more light that is allowed in,
which creates a shallower depth of field or focus.
You'll notice the depth of field changing
as we move this jog wheel to the left or to the right.
The Sony a7 III's aperture jog wheel
happens to be right here
on the front side of the camera.
For this portrait,
I'll keep my aperture wide open at 1.8.
This allows me to get a nice, soft bokeh effect
in the background.
However, if you're doing group or family pictures,
you may not want your aperture as open,
because some faces may be out of focus.
All right, next, let's change our shutter speed.
Shutter speed is the amount of time
the shutter is open,
allowing light to reach the sensor.
A faster shutter speed
allows you to capture fast moving subjects with less blur.
But since the shutter is opening and closing quickly,
less light comes in.
A slower shutter speed is the opposite.
It's open longer, allowing more light in,
but if the subject moves while it's open,
there will be some blur.
The Sony a7 III's shutter speed jog wheel is right here
on the back side of the camera.
I'll adjust the wheel left or right
until my subject comes out sharp.
There we go.
I like this setting.
Finally, our third setting adjustment is ISO,
which is a setting you can adjust
if you don't have enough light.
You'll typically wanna keep it as low as possible.
Generally speaking, when the ISO gets higher,
so does the graininess of the photo,
as you can see here.
That said, cameras have come a long way in this space,
allowing for much higher ISO numbers
with minimal impact to the photo.
To get to the ISO on the Sony a7 III,
you will tap on the right side of this wheel here,
right next to the label, ISO.
Then, simply adjust the wheel left or right
to change your ISO setting.
I'll adjust mine to this setting.
And if you don't know what ISO to choose,
you can even set it to Auto ISO,
allowing the camera to make the decision
based on our other settings.
To set the Sony a7 III to Auto ISO,
simply lower your ISO to the same menu
all the way down until you see Auto as a setting.
Then, click to confirm.
Now you are in Auto ISO.
Finding the right balance between aperture,
shutter speed, and ISO is the biggest key
to taking great photos,
especially portraits.
Oh, and here's a tip for you.
It may be better to have a higher ISO
and sacrifice some image quality
than a blurry picture
because the shutter was open for too long.
Now, there are some other settings on your camera
that you might wanna change.
For example, if you plan on making detailed edits
to your photos,
set your camera to RAW mode.
To do this, tap Menu and change your file format to RAW.
This will save more data with each picture,
giving you a better range for editing things
like color, contrast, shadows, and highlights.
However, you should know that if you use RAW mode,
the file size of each picture will be much larger,
and will require a photo editing tool
like Photoshop or Lightroom to import and adjust.
So if you don't plan on making refined edits to your photos,
you might wanna keep it in JPEG mode.
With JPEG mode, the camera will compress each image
to keep the file size lower.
This means you'll lose some information,
even the camera is set to the highest resolution.
To do this,
tap Menu and change your file format to JPEG.
All right, we have our camera settings dialed in.
Let's talk about lighting,
and how we can best optimize our image.
First, let's grab our light reflectors.
These will help with hard shadows,
and can add some extra fill light to your subject.
Today, I'm using this Platinum 5-in-1
42-inch collapsible light reflector
and compact folding light stand.
There are many ways to use it.
I'd recommend using the silver reflector outdoors
in daylight when the sun is higher
and the gold side during sunrise or sunset shots
when the light is naturally more golden.
The white reflector is useful
for indoor and studio lighting.
Since I'm shooting indoors,
I'm going to use the white side.
I'll start by using a 45 degree angle toward the subject,
starting approximately six feet away.
Then I'll move closer
and continue to wrap around the subject
at varying angles until the light catches just right.
Next, let's try our light diffuser.
You'll see here that light diffusers
are perfect for blocking harsh direct light.
Just hold them near the subject
to soften the light like this.
Lastly, the black panel can add soft shadows
in flat lighting by absorbing ambient light.
Okay, so what if you're taking portraits indoors,
but don't have a lot of light to work with?
In this case,
your wireless flash is a great option.
I'm using a Sony Alpha Wireless Radio Control Flash.
I'll start by placing it a few feet
and about 45 degrees away from my subject.
Make sure it's higher than eye level
to avoid awkward shadows.
If you don't have a way to hold the flash off the camera,
mount it on the camera here.
Use the tilt head to point it up toward the ceiling
or toward a wall,
allowing the light to bounce off a surface
and onto your subject.
The goal is to have the flash light soft
so you don't create any harsh shadows.
Hiding the fact that you're using a flash at all.
You want it to look natural,
like it was never there.
The closer the flash is to the subject,
the softer the shadow will be.
So if you have to be close,
use a low power setting
or at a diffuser to your flash
like this Platinum mini flash diffuser.
If you don't have a wireless flash,
but you do have a ring light,
that can work too.
I'm using a Sunpak 19-inch LED ring light
to get a clean modern headshot.
To achieve this look,
just place the ring light close to your subject
and shoot through the center, boom!
Finally, the last tool we're using today
is a white balance card like this Platinum card set.
This helps set your white balance,
making the color of the photo more accurate.
Have you ever taken a picture that looks too warm or orange,
or maybe one that felt too cool or blue?
That's probably because your white balance
wasn't set properly.
A good starting point is to set it
to Auto white balance.
Technology and cameras do an amazing job
of getting it right,
but if it's not right
or you wanna control the white balance,
manually set the camera's white balance using a preset.
For example, if you're outside,
set it to sunny or cloudy,
depending on the, the conditions.
To find this setting,
simply click the Fn button,
then use the directional pad on the wheel
to navigate to what is currently AWB
or Auto white balance.
You can then scroll left or right
to adjust your white balance
to the desired setting.
For mine, I'll choose this.
Then, for even better accuracy,
have your subject hold the 15% gray card up
and snap a picture.
Using that image as a reference,
you can then use your editing software
to set the white balance for all your photos.
Now the skin tones and colors
will be more accurate, great!
All right, there you have it.
A few tips to help you with portrait photography.
Try a few or all of the tips
to help you find what you want when taking portraits.
Hopefully this video was helpful.
If it was, give it a like.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments,
and don't forget to subscribe to our channel
for more tech tips from Best Buy.
Thanks for watching.