How to use telephoto lens in portrait photography

Portrait photography is the most extensive photographic subject, and many photographers use telephoto, whether novice or experienced. The following are the techniques I carefully recommend for you to take portraits with telephoto lenses, hoping to help you.

? Introduction to telephoto lens shooting 1. Advantages of taking portraits with telephoto lenses

The choice of focal length directly affects the proportion of the subject in the picture, thus determining the visual effect of the photo. The reason is that it is easy to use, and the zoom lens can enlarge or reduce the scene in situ. This is of course a simple way of composition, but it is by no means the best way to shoot portraits.

The advantages of using the medium telephoto lens are less deformation, normal perspective and simple operation. Because of its small shooting angle and deep scene, it has obvious compression effect on the scene, which can blur the messy scene, make the characters more prominent and the picture more stable.

Second, the telephoto experience

The telephoto lens can narrow the distance between people and the scene, strongly compress the space, make the picture quite concise, compact and full, blur the foreground and background, highlight the main body, and obtain the aesthetic feeling of overlapping scenes on the basis of obviously weakening the perspective effect.

Advantages of 1 and 85 lenses

As we all know, the 85mm lens is a fixed-focus portrait lens. Large aperture, good luminous flux, soft oily image quality. Very suitable for shooting busts, used in specific environments. When shooting close-up pictures, 85mm lens has the characteristics of no deformation compared with standard lens or wide-angle lens, which is very suitable for close-up emotional description. Compared with telephoto lens, 85 is closer to the perspective of natural human eyes and will not compress the environment into a background plate.

Comparison of 2.85 mm and 50 mm, 35 mm and 35 mm

85 has the characteristics of large aperture to highlight the main body and the portrait is not deformed. Compared with 50 and 35, its background blur is more obvious, and as a portrait head, it optimizes the skin color of the characters to some extent, especially when the weather is bad, and it performs better than the lens of 50 or 35. But the performance of the environment is not as rich as 50 or 30.

Third, telephoto framing skills

The framing of telephoto still follows several composition rules, such as three-point composition, diagonal composition and tic-tac-toe composition. In addition, the unique compression of telephoto makes it easier to capture the use of foreground. For shooting in cities, telephoto has its advantages in capturing depth, such as tunnels, passages, docks, street lamps, etc., which are especially suitable for telephoto. In the wild, telephoto is also the best choice to bring distant scenery closer to the model.

Fourth, how to fill the light for the model in telephoto

The supplementary light of telephoto should pay attention to the light ratio with the environment. For example, when shooting a wedding dress in Shan Ye, the wedding dress is prone to overexposure, so the fill light should be as soft and unobtrusive as possible, and the subject and background should not be separated because of the infiltration of artificial light. When necessary, you can use the hot shoe flash to supplement the light with a slight output value for the model's face.

Five, the distance from the model and how to guide the model

When shooting with telephoto, it is often far away from the model, which requires full communication before the model is in place, and fine-tuning after the photographer and the model are in place can only rely on loud voice. From this, once again, preparation in advance is the most important.

The lens is an indispensable large aperture lens.

For the shooting of portrait works, the most commonly used lens is a large aperture lens, which can create a very dreamy background blur effect, especially suitable for fresh portraits.

The first recommended lens is Canon EF 50mm f/ 1.8 II, but the price of 600 yuan's first head has the maximum aperture of f/ 1.8, which is enough to meet your demand for large aperture.

2. Shooting fresh portraits with wide-angle characteristics

Photography has never been anything. Are you sure? Wide-angle lenses can also take fresh portraits.

The wide-angle method will also be blurred.

Blurring is actually because the depth of field is shallow enough, and you want shallow depth of field. In addition to the large aperture and telephoto lens, it is still possible to get close to the subject. Under the same focal length and aperture, the closer to the subject, the better the background blur effect. Of course, be careful not to be too extreme, you will lose focus if you are too close!

Third, use the characteristics of telephoto to shoot wonderful portraits.

When it comes to portrait photography, we can't help but mention telephoto lens. EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM also takes fresh portraits? Standard? First, what effect can you achieve with a telephoto lens?

Different from the large aperture lens mentioned above, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM provides a full range of f/2.8 aperture, so you can control your depth of field to the maximum.

Shooting fresh portraits can bring different feelings. A large aperture lens is not the only choice for taking portraits. Wide-angle lenses and even ultra-wide-angle lenses can shoot portraits with different tastes. The telephoto lens has always had a unique advantage in portrait shooting.

Basic shooting skills 1. hole

Use f/ 1.2, f/ 1.4, f/ 1.8 and other large apertures. 50mm f/ 1.8 is only a few hundred dollars, great lens. On APS-C format camera, the equivalent focal length of 50mm lens is 80mm, which is very suitable for taking portraits.

2. Shadows and uniform light

Let the model be in the shadow area, and the light shining on the model's face should be uniform. The model had better stand in the shadow and face the light source.

Shadow and uniform light

Pay attention to your eyes

If you use a large aperture lens, be sure to focus on your eyes. In the case of shallow depth of field, other areas of the face will be slightly out of focus. To enhance this effect, you need to shoot close to the model, preferably close-up.

4. Choose the aperture carefully

If you want to take a full-length portrait, you should carefully choose the aperture to ensure that the body parts of the model are within the depth of field. If you still use a large aperture such as f/2.8, the depth of field will be too shallow. Reduce the aperture to f/5.6, and ensure that the shutter speed is not lower than1125s. If necessary, increase the sensitivity or fill the light. This combination is just a suggestion. You can try different combinations to find the best setting.

5. Manual control

Many articles suggest using aperture priority mode. This is no problem when you first came into contact with the camera 1 month. But if you want to shoot better, you must learn to use manual mode.

6. the light of the eyes

Make sure that the model's eyes reflect some light, even in the shadow, as long as you keep the model and the light source oriented.

7. props

Don't let the models go home empty-handed, give them something to hold. The commonly used props are bouquets, and even men can take pictures with them.

8. Pay attention to the background

Let the background have light or shadow, in short, keep it simple, and the model is the main body of the picture. When shooting outdoors, it is best to choose an open background instead of bushes or walls.

9. clothes

Pay attention to the model's clothes. Clothing and accessories are also part of the picture. As a visual creator, you should have a choice.

10. Learn Photoshop