Do your portraits still look amateurish despite all the time you’ve put in with your camera? Want to take your portrait game to the next level? Watch the helpful tutorial below from Simone Ferretti with five simple tips (in five minutes) that will give your portraits a professional look.
“I’ve made a career out of shooting portraits and in this video, I’m going to show you five tips that will actually make a huge difference in your shots,” Ferretti says.
#1 Focus Area
“The majority of beginner photographers tend to use the wide focus area, so they don’t have to worry about where they actually focus,” he explains. “But instead, if you want to take your portraits to the next level, I suggest you try to use the focus area on flexible spot. This means you can actually move around the little focus square so you can decide exactly where you want to focus on.”
#2 Focus on Eyes
“You always always want to focus on the eyes. Especially whenever you’re using composition rules, it’s really important to understand where you want the eyes to be and to ensure they’re in focus.”
#3 Use a Wide Aperture
“The next thing you want to make sure to do whenever you’re shooting portraits is to try to shoot with the widest aperture as possible. This means that you want to have a low f-stop such as F1.2 or F1.4, F1.8, or F2.8, because this with give you the bokeh effect, which blurs the background to draw attention to your subject.”
#4 Use Long Lenses (50mm or Higher)
“When you use a wide lens, then you’re going to have a distorted face. But when you have a 50mm or 70mm or even higher, you’ll have a more natural looking face, and you can have even more blurred background.”
#5 Bring a Light with You
“This will help out a lot especially if it’s a gray day. Lighting is always the most important thing in photography and having a small light that you can put in your pocket will make a huge difference if you want to take striking portraits and there’s not much light outdoors.”
