First time outdoor portrait shoot – difficulty: sister

[Barracuda]

My sister asked me to take some engagement / save the date photos for her and her fiance this weekend. She understands that I’m not a portrait shooter but she’s looking for something fairly candid so hopefully I’ll come away with something she’s satisfied with.

Basically the plan is a late morning trip to the Arboretum on Sunday, forecast is a bit breezy but not too bad, partly cloudy so hopefully the shadows won’t be too harsh. My 50mm f14 and 28mm f1.8 on my XSi should be all the lens I need, and have my speedlite for some fill flash if I need to fight some shadow. Anything major I’m not thinking of?

[ennuipoet]

My sister asked me to take some engagement / save the date photos for her and her fiance this weekend. She understands that I’m not a portrait shooter but she’s looking for something fairly candid so hopefully I’ll come away with something she’s satisfied with.

Basically the plan is a late morning trip to the Arboretum on Sunday, forecast is a bit breezy but not too bad, partly cloudy so hopefully the shadows won’t be too harsh. My 50mm f14 and 28mm f1.8 on my XSi should be all the lens I need, and have my speedlite for some fill flash if I need to fight some shadow. Anything major I’m not thinking of?

Errh, bad time to shoot, but you can fix it. First, your crop sensor XSi and the 50mm is the best combination. Shoot in RAW. What Speedlight do you have? If you can adjust your SL for Zoom and Intensity, you can work with it, if you can’t buy a cheap reflector and use it with natural light. ( http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=581151011 ).

If you can get the flash off camera, then do it, even an extension cable will make a world of difference.

[Barracuda]

Yeah, time of day isn’t the best, but doubt I can get my sister up and going for a 9am shoot and evening is out as well. I’ve got the Speedlite EX 430 II, I’ve worked with it some but not a lot so that’s my project for tomorrow and Friday to familiarize myself with it. Of course, my sister’s favorite photo of her and her fiance was one I candidly took with a friend’s Nikon that I picked up for the first time 5 minutes prior (and of course I had it on Sepia tone and JPG only! :lol:)

[orionid]

Something medium-long like a 85mm 2.0 or 90mm 2.8 can actually give a nice, intimate feel, too. Otherwise, rock on. Do what feels best with the lighting and background.

If you (and the couple) have the patience, Ryan Brenizer’s method is gaining in popularity for engagement and wedding shoots. Of course, if you’re like me, you’d probably rather just lug out the 13×9 or 4×5.

Method: http://blog.buiphotos.com/2009/07/the-brenizer-method-explained-with-directions/

Q&D Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=brenizer&s=int

Blog entries tagged from the dude who developed it: http://www.ryanbrenizer.com/category/brenizer-method/

[bender16v]

I get a daily newsletter from PictureCorrect and one of yesterday’s topics was outdoor portrait tips: http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/tips-on-taking-outdoor-portraits/

Portraits are something that I have never really tried but would like to. I’ve done a couple of staged outdoor nature shoots and I imagine that it is similar. Less fill flash on an overcast day and more in the sun to take away shadows. I’m not sure how to deal with people though.

[swampa]

If you (and the couple) have the patience, Ryan Brenizer’s method is gaining in popularity for engagement and wedding shoots. Of course, if you’re like me, you’d probably rather just lug out the 13×9 or 4×5.

Method: http://blog.buiphotos.com/2009/07/the-brenizer-method-explained-with-directions/

Am I missing something here? Isn’t this just normal stitching where Ryan prefers to take a heap of photos with his f/1.2 lens over using taking a single photo with a wide angle lens?

He doesn’t seem to be doing anything different during the taking process that I can see? (Like changing the depth of field as he travels outwards – hmm I think I have just found something to try on the weekend!)

[orionid]

If you (and the couple) have the patience, Ryan Brenizer’s method is gaining in popularity for engagement and wedding shoots. Of course, if you’re like me, you’d probably rather just lug out the 13×9 or 4×5.

Method: http://blog.buiphotos.com/2009/07/the-brenizer-method-explained-with-directions/

Am I missing something here? Isn’t this just normal stitching where Ryan prefers to take a heap of photos with his f/1.2 lens over using taking a single photo with a wide angle lens?

He doesn’t seem to be doing anything different during the taking process that I can see? (Like changing the depth of field as he travels outwards – hmm I think I have just found something to try on the weekend!)

It’s simulating the effect of a larger sensor area, thus causing a lower perceived DoF. The numbers below are rough guestimations, and shouldn’t be taken as gospel, but they’ll exemplify the theory. Also, I know you’re already well aware of most of what I’m explaining, but I’m covering the background for anyone else who might be reading.

Three variables go into the Depth of Field equation: Focal Length, Aperture, and Focal Distance to Subject. As Your focal length increases, your depth of field shortens for a given aperture and distance. As you open your aperture (lower number as I’m sure you’re aware), DoF likewise shrinks. Conversely, as your subject gets further away (Focal Distance increases), your DoF expands. So you end up with the proportion:

DoF ~ (FDs * A) / FL

Two variables go into Field of View: Focal Length and Sensor/Film Size. As your focal length goes up, you tighten your view (Zooming in). As you increase your sensor size, you get a larger image area and therefore a wider field of view. This is generally noticed when you hear things like “35mm on a crop sensor has the same view as a 50mm on a full frame” or “My 300mm is equivalent to 450mm on film.” If you continue out in this manner, you’d see that on a 4×5 film sheet, something closer to 200mm will be the same view as 50mm on full frame (90mm is considered ultra-wide in large format). This is still completely independent of your DoF equation, though.

FoV ~ FS / FL

Say you wanted to photograph someone leaning next to a tree and you wanted to capture their entire body with the perspective formed from standing six feet away. What are your options? If you’re like me on a crop sensor, you’re probably thinking about something wider than 24mm, maybe say an 18mm or so. At f/2.8, you might have a DoF about three or four feet deep, and lots of background detail. Now let’s say you wanted to really make that image pop. You want your subject to be razor sharp, while everything else is blown out in bokeh, almost like she was photoshopped into a dreamscape. Now what are your options? You can either try to find that mysterious 18mm f/0.5 lens, you can dust off Old Uncle Louie’s 4×5 view camera, or you can use Benizer’s method with something a little more realistic like an 85mm f/2.0 or the tamron 90mm f/2.8, or for a few dollars more, the Nikkor 135mm f/2.0. Now, from six feet away, you have a DoF as thick as a pancake, but you can only see her face, not the whole scene. So you bust out your 8×10 sensor back…… or you spray a pattern like you’re shooting a panorama and stitch them together after the fact. Now you have that elusive narrow DoF and a wide angle of view.

I couldn’t find a good example on flickr, but if you go back to one of the posts in Ryan Benizer’s blog: http://www.ryanbrenizer.com/2012/09/brenizer-method-contest-results-honorable-mentions-part-2/ there’s a dressage photo about halfway down that illustrates the effect perfectly. If you look at the perspective on the horse, it would make sense to guess that the photographer was standing about ten feet away. To make this shot on a crop sensor, you’d need something as wide as say 14 or 16mm with rectilinear proportions. But if you look at the DoF, your sharp area is only the horse’s eyes and snout. Everything else blends away smoothly into bokeh. To do that at 16 mm, you’d need something rediculous like f/0.05 and that just isn’t happening. Instead, the photographer went with 85mm at f/1.4 and snapped 36 photos, merging them together in software. His other option would have been 85mm at f/1.4 on 9×13 or 4×5. Doable, but not for cheap. This technique lets anyone with a dSLR produce this sort of result without having to lug around a big-ass large-format camera.

/Also, I love love love the shot of the girl in the rain in the last link.
//apologies for threadjacking.

[swampa]

Am I missing something here?

Words word words!

I was told there would be no maths!!

But glad to know I was missing something 🙂

[Barracuda]

Shoot went pretty well this morning. Took about 300 shots, of that sis and the future brother-in-law picked out about 80 they liked and they’re going to pick a half dozen or so of those for me to fully process for them to pick from to use on their save the date cards. Weather cooperated pretty well for spring in Texas. Mostly overcast so harsh shadow wasn’t nearly nearly as much of a problem as I’d feared. As side from being a bit too over zealous with the wide open aperture which yielded a bit too narrow of a depth of field in some cases (note to self, use the dof preview button more), I was fairly happy with the results of most shots. My only real disappointment was blowing out one shot that I really like the pose of that I only managed to get one of. Was able to massage it a bit into a high-key B&W.

[Barracuda]

A few samples from the shoot posted in the Gallery.

[Author]

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