portrait settings

Murrayville Mom asks:

What is the best setting for taking a b/w photograph of a person (not moving)on a DSLR?

Any tips? Probably using natural light (if there is enough light) or the built in flash on my camera.

I want the photos to look fabulous!! Can you help me?! I am thinking full body shots, or waist up type shots.

Well, MM, I wish there was a simple answer for the settings, but there isn't.  Whether it's in B&W or colour.  I personally prefer shooting in Av mode, which is aperture priority, meaning, I like to make the depth of field (DOF) shallow enough that I can use bokeh (the blur in front of and behind whatever is in focus ) to my advantage.  I prefer bouts of diarrhea to using artificial lighting (strobe, flash, continual, whatever) for anything but creative purposes and curse people who don't get their picture taken at a decent time of day.  On my old manual cameras, I'd have to adjust the shutter speed accordingly and deal with whatever ISO I had loaded in the camera, usually ISO200; DSLR cameras will do the work for you in Av.  The camera will also adjust the ISO in the auto-range you have it set to; the higher the ISO, the more noise you will get in the final image.

Here's where Av can get tricky, though - when you have Av set, the camera will adjust the shutter speed below 1/60 of a second.  This is problematic because the longest a person can stand still and take a picture without getting camera shake is 1/60 of a second.  A tripod will allow you to not get camera shake, but also limits the positions you can be in while taking the picture.  Some cameras come with a setting called 'TAv' which will allow you to set your camera up to warn you that you're about to dip below whatever shutter speed you've selected.  Also, if you have a flash that cannot be manually turned off, then you will end up fighting with the flash popping up when you don't want it up.

The available aperture will vary from lens to lens.  An aperture setting of f3.5 is a safe place to start - will give you pretty good front and back bokeh (I like to call it the good blur) without risking having too shallow a DOF to get the whole person in pretty good focus.  With too shallow a DOF, you may end up with the person's nose out of focus; if the focus is accidentally set on the part of the person close to you (their chest, their forehead) you may end up with the person's eyes out of focus.  A good rule is to always focus on the person's eyes - a blurry nose isn't nearly as bad as blurry eyes.

If you want to learn how to guestimate this, put your DSLR on manual, set the shutter speed to 1/60, and play around with the film speed and aperture to get the exposure you like best.  Another tip is to use spot or centre-weighted metering instead of matrix or multi-point meering, and your EV lock, so just your subject is being metered, and not the background which may be lighter or darker than your subject.  It also helps keep your whites white and your blacks black.

I hope this helps!  Happy shooting!