Time for me to talk portrait photography again.
This has been a ground breaking year for me in this area. Starting the journey last year with some experimentation, building a home studio, re-converting that back to a study, because I realised I did not need or even want a fixed space, shooting the Telstra board, several drama casts and plenty of “home” shots, I have become reasonably confident in this space.
Confidence breeds creativity as it reduces clutter, confusion and redundancy and allows for healthy experimentation. At some point, you stop thinking about process, then get excited about possibilities and concentrate on your subject.
The point of this post is to show just how easy and cheap it is to achieve a good quality portrait.
So, first up, what do you need.
Camera and Lens
Anything will do, honestly. A basic and I mean basic entry level SLR, Mirrorless or even top end compact (has to have a basic hotshoe and preferably a 1” sensor or bigger), with a standard kit zoom can do wonders. The reason for this is you have control of the space, so you are using your kit in it’s comfort envelope, not stressing it.
Any lens used wisely with any camera can produce beautiful portraits, some less than perfect lenses even add a distinctive look. If you can stretch to it, a fast prime lens in the (full frame) 50-100mm range (25-70 in smaller sensor formats) can guarantee the best quality and some depth of field control, but probably more than in any field of professional photography, camera and lens selection mean less than most other considerations.
My top end portrait kit is the Olympus Pen F or Panasonic G9 with the 25mm or 45mm f1.8 Olys, Sigma 30 f1.4 or one of the 12 to X zooms. If I have room, the king is the 75mm f1.8, but it needs a good ten feet or more. At a pinch, an OM10 mk2 with a kit zoom works just fine.
The three shots above were taken with different focal lengths. The shortest lens (Oly 25/Sigma 30) adds intimacy and a slight 3d effect. The middle lens (Oly 45mm) is good for a stand-off shot with a feeling of “rightness”, seeing the world rough the same as the human eye. The longest (Oly 75mm) adds compression and tightness as well as maximum background blur if wanted.
Lighting
After a camera and lens have been sorted, lighting must be tackled. Lighting is main determining factor for adding “a” quality to, and determining “the” quality of your portraits. Nothing else is as important.
The rules here are;
Enough light to give you control of the balance between artificial and natural.
Control of your light direction, number of lights, colour and contrast.
Shape or intensity of the type of light also called modification.
Keep it simple as possible.
Enough can be as easy as one or two cheap manual flash units. If you only want to do single person portraits, then a single $100 speedlite flash is plenty. I use M43 kit so I gain a slight power advantage over a full frame user, but even if you have a large sensor camera, one light can work. As I will explain below, you usually want your light quite close to your subject, so enough power is easy to achieve.
My kit consists of a clutch of manual YungNuo 560 mk3 and 4’s, retailing for about $100au each. They have been dropped, hammered and have never failed. The on camera controller can be the cheap little TX560 or one of the units, so a bare minimum is 1 flash and 1 controller ($160au), but 2 flash units gives you peace of mind and options. With a half a dozen of these at hand I actually have too much light, but it’s nice to have options and depth.
Neewer, Godox and others make similar, so basically look for the best price and for this buy Manual only units not TTL. These are not brand specific, always give you the same light at the same settings and are generally half the price of their TTL equivalent. TTL is great for gun and gun or straight on camera flash but are a little twitchy in a studio, reacting to changing subjects etc. The main thing here is to get decent rechargeable batteries. Amazon basics or Eneloop are ideal. An even cheaper option is an entry level plug in to the wall studio light set, which usually comes with stands and brollies.
Naiural light is fine, when you can find it.
Control means simply the ability to determine the number of lights wanted, their power and the ability to place them where you need them. A couple of cheap stands like the 2m Neewer stainless or even the really cheap ones in starter kits are a start. If your subject is sitting, then 2 meters tall is plenty, but for standing, go for 2.6m.
I have a ton of these at hand, usually using a 2.6m for my backdrop, a pair of 2m for lights and a super light 1.8m for rim light. The basic rule is, they just need to be tall enough and strong enough, especially if you want to add weights to them for safety (I use 2kg K-Mart ankle weights).
2 lights is a good start, one is enough for many looks. More go into more creative and complicated territory. A key light is mandatory, but can be any strong source (the rule here is to make the part of the subject you want, to be brighter than the background, simple as that). The fill light can come from a number of sources including reflective surfaces, if needed at all. A third or fourth light are optional, but do provide options.
Often a determining factor for power is the lens aperture used (small apertures like those found on cheaper lenses like f5.6 can force you to use more power more often) and distance from light to subject. For maximum softness, you need the light source to be big and closer if possible so the second often looks after itself.
Shape or intensity of light is the creative key for lighting quality. This is the most daunting bit, but also the most creative side. First you need to decide on the look or looks you want to achieve. Do ypu wanrt sfot and open looking portraits, hard and contrasty or a generous mix of both? This will determine the modifiers needed. For 90% of your work, cheap white umbrellas are plenty. Even cheaper, a single light, brolly and a reflective surface will do. I have tested various modifiers and to be honest, a cheap 33” white brolly is effectively the same as a 4’ soft box if used properly.
You will need a primary light, called the key light. This can easily be natural light, like a window or even a room light, but relying on nature can be a trap. With just one artificial light you can mimic nature easily. The key light will determine the look you are after. Often these lights get a second name for the type of light they produce. Butterfly, Rembrandt, Split etc are all types of key light, but regardless, the key light determines what else you need.
The second light is called fill light, which removes sometimes bottomless shadows caused by the key light. Fill is always the weaker light, so any thing from a weaker flash setting to a stronger modifier or even a reflective surface can work. The rule of thumb is 2 stops of light less, but it varies.
The third is the rim or hair light. Purely optional and even the sun or ambient light can do this role, the rim light help separate the subject from their background,
Themost common use of a fourth light is for the background. This is a handy way to change background colour or even at a halo effect. It is even possible to make a grey background white with enough light.
The full house. The key light is a standard left hand 45 degrees to the side, 45 degrees ubove shoot through brolly. The fill is a lower reversed brolly shooting into the shadow side and the hair light is coming from the right side rear.
No introduced light here. The key is natural light through a door on the shady side of a building, no fill was used as the key was quite soft and there was no light to add, but the light behind added rim lighting.
My base kit is a pair of 42” white Godox brollies and a small soft box for optional rim lighting. I bought these first up and could have easily settled. cannot explain why I have 20+ other options at hand, but guaranteed, if I need a reliable core kit, these are my go-to’s. I use the main light with a brolly facing the subject, the light shooting through it, the “fill” light is the same, but reversed, which reduces the output by about 2 stops. The third light if used is fired through a small soft box. A lighter option for me is a single light and brolly, with maybe a small reflector for fill/rim.
As you can see, the bill so far does not need to be excessive. If you intend to be a natural light portraitist, then the lens needs to be a faster one like an f2.8 zoom or even a $200 f1.8 prime simply to control background blur and collect more light. This may be all you need with a reflector or diffuser panel for on the go fill.
Nothing but natural light.
If you want to use mostly artificial light, then a cheaper kit lens is fine, but $2-300 needs to be spent on lights and stands etc.
My “full noise” rig from a recent drama shoot. The continuous black allowed for full length shots, my key and fill were both reversed brollies, the left hand one a backed one, reflecting a little more light and set higher. The floor brolly was to help separate the subjects so they could be cut out in post and the rim light is a little 30” soft box nearest the camera right.
Stands, backdrop, lights, brollies etc came in at about $400au.
In part 2 we will look at technique and backgrounds.