Digital Photography Ycademy 10

Based on Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy Ycad­emy 9 we are able to plan our pic­tures depth of field. The only remain­ing prob­lem is: you may have a cam­era which does not allow for A set­tings (man­ual Aper­ture pri­or­ity settings).

Don’t worry, there is a way to at least par­tially com­pen­sate for this shortfall.

The below gallery can best be viewed HERE (opens new window).

Remem­ber, we said that the depth of field is func­tion of aper­ture and dis­tance. Hence, we can use the dis­tance trick which works with most any dig­i­tal cam­era or mobile phone.

First we try to com­pose our pic­ture in a way that the per­son is not glued to a back­ground, such as lean­ing on a wall. Posi­tion the per­son at least 2 meters off the next back­ground. Then frame clsosely from max­i­mum 1.5 meters (with­out zoom­ing). The result may be bet­ter if the back­ground is even fur­ther away to fall out of the metered focal range (cor­re­spond­ing to infin­ity set­tings) which is at about 10–12 meters.

Now shoot your por­trait: the aut­o­fo­cus will grab the face and apply the dis­tance, which in it’s turn will trig­ger the aper­ture and shut­ter speed in func­tion of that dis­tance and light. By set­ting your cam­era pre­sets on Por­trait, the cam­era does this as well, whereas a nar­roc depth of field is forced.

In any case, you will end up with a sharp por­trait and a more or less blurred background.

If you have taken your pic­ture accord­ing to the above, then your post edit­ing is a sun­day walk. Just apply some of the great light­room pre­sets or pho­to­shop actions. Some of these pro­fes­sional tools will lift the qual­ity of your mediocre pic­ture dra­mat­i­cally and clearly digg a huge can­ion between you and the com­peti­tors in your camera’s class.

Here an exam­ple: the below pic­ture has been taken with my 4 years old $50 super­mar­ket cam­era accord­ing to the above rule. Then I just pulled it through some pro­fes­sional fil­ters such as stuff from from Kub­ota, Davis and onOne. This is a mat­ter of just seconds :-).

Join tonight’s Ycad­e­my­Work­shop for more tips and tricks.

• por­trait post editing

Related posts:

1. Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy Ycad­emy 9
2. Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy Ycad­emy 8
3. Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy Ycad­emy 7
4. Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy Ycad­emy 4
5. Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy Ycad­emy 6

Tags: Digital Photography Ycademy, Digital Portrait Photography, Lightroom, Photoshop, Portrait Editing, Yorgo Nestoridis, YorgoMan

This entry was posted on April 16, 2010 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Design, Digital Photography, Media, Media Design, Media Marketing Publishing, Photo Editing, Photo Website, Photographic Art, Photoshop, Web Design, Web Design Basics, Web Design Workshop, Ycademy, yorgo Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.