Single Shot with Portrait Session | Transcription

Now, what we’ve done here so far is, again, we’ve placed Yvette’s back to the light. The light’s coming in behind her. We get beautiful highlights all over the background from the trees to the cement. Well whatever we choose to do in the scene, we’re going to have beautiful backlighting. Also, gives us a nice little hair light, as well. What I need you to do is I’m going to have Tony come on to this side. Tony’s going to actually help me fill light, to create a stronger side light on her face, and just even out the lighting.

All right. Let’s get started right here. I’m going to go ahead and do a couple of things with my settings. In focus mode, I have it on Single Servo AF. For my AF area mode, I’m also selecting Single Point AF, the reason is again, I don’t want any of these auto area AF modes that are choosing based on an area. I want to be able to assign those things myself. I’m want take the control back, okay? That looks great. Now,  all we need to do is get the right composition and everything. I’ve set Ivet here for another reason, too. We actually have this nice tree in the background that has 2 branches, or 2 roots that are going in different directions. It’s all backlit. It looks lovely. I’m actually going to try and use it to frame our subject.

Yvette, why don’t I have you stand up for a second. I’m going to see if I like the stronger hair light on your hair better or the lighter one. Go right onto the cement real quick. That would be the stronger hair light. It’s actually pretty nice. It creates a good separation there. Why don’t you bring in that light, Tony, and show them what it looks like. Bring it all the way in right to the side of her face. Adding as much light as we can right there. Then, let’s check this out. At 1/800 of a second, I’m going to take my first shot. The hair light is a little bit on the strong side. That’s okay. Let’s go ahead and try that one more time. Let’s have Yvette come forward out of that direct light so we have a softer backlight.

I’m going to take a fairly close up portrait. Let’s see. At 1/800 shutter speed, I’m a little bit on the fast side. I’m going to slow down just a bit to 1/640 of a second. That looks great. These are situations where single shot is really awesome, because the subject is static. It’s a very easy mode to use. When we say the subject is static, it doesn’t mean that the subject can’t emote, or basically give you expressions. They still can. It’s just that we don’t want her moving forward or backwards.

Tony, let’s have you come out a little bit. I’m going to have you back up to about there. There you go. Then, give me that white side. You can see how beautiful this fill light is right there. I’m getting in as much light as we can over here, and then we’re just going to put it into position. You can see how much light we’re getting on that. I’m going to step back a little more because I want to get, basically, like a 3/4 shot. Well, basically a 5 shot. We’re going to cut off right at the thighs so we get both of her hands in the shot, too. I’m going to step back just a little bit. I’m on the 85mm still. I have to come back a little bit further. Perfect. Again, 1/640 of a second.

You could see how balanced these shots are as far as the overall highlights. We have a little bit of highlights that are on the cement that are getting blown up. Otherwise, our histograms, they look absolutely perfect.

CHAPTER 1: BASIC PHOTOGRAPHY CONCEPTS

CHAPTER 2: UNDERSTANDING EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 3: FROM AUTO MODES TO MANUAL

CHAPTER 4: SHARP IMAGES AND FOCUSING TECHNIQUES

Chapter 5: COMPOSITION, ARTISTRY, AND CREATING GREAT IMAGES

Chapter 6: LEARNING MORE ABOUT YOUR CAMERA

Chapter 7: BONUS

Total Course Run Time: 6H 30M 21S