Thursday, July 10, 2008

Portrait Photography II

In my first post for portrait photography, I wrote:

If you are using wide-angle lens and intending to take a full-body-length portrait, avoid shooting at eye level. This will make the subject’s legs look short!


Lingoes:

To shoot in wide-angle means to zoom out. The opposite of wide-angle is telephoto, or long lens. A normal lens is in-between, and has a field of view similar to human eyes.


How did I know shooting at eye level with wide-angle lens can make a subject’s legs look short? Because, as a lousy photographer, I have made this mistake in the past . Here is an example of bad image...

Wide-angel, eye level


How to solve this problem? One possibility is to squat down when taking the picture. Alternatively, shoot with either a normal lens or a telephoto lens. The following photo was taken with a short telephoto lens...

Short telephoto


As you can see, images shot with wide-angle lens and telephoto lens look different. This brings up another issue:

Most point-and-shooters stand at one place and zoom the lens. A better approach is to determine beforehand what lens you want to use, and zoom with your legs!


Related post:

Portrait Photography

11 comments:

  1. but hor, if u squat down n take, the person will look fatter!

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  2. the first lady has got such a big belly ~ XD

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  3. xin
    Legs will look fatter...

    But hor... some people take with wide-angel lens and they manage to make the legs look long + slim. I am still struggling to do that.

    The easier way is to shoot with normal lens or telephoto...

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  4. 迷迭香
    Nobody is perfect...

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  5. Nice tip. But how to zoom with your legs?

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  6. neo
    Walk back and forth until you find the right distance.

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  7. Nice second picture. You really took that yourself. I love those kinda pictures that focuses on the person while the background is kinda blurry.

    Thanks for visiting my blog!

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  8. princess shin
    Actually it is easy to have blurry background if you use a DSLR plus a 'fast' lens.

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  9. Waa, you are using very sexciting terms, wor.

    Squat down - great move esp if the subject is in miniest of minis.

    Zoom with your legs - this one cracks me up.

    Okay, not laughing now! Thanks for the tips though.

    Peace.

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  10. happysurfer
    I never thought of that! Thank you for giving me this tip!

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  11. Thanks, I will zoom, macro and wide with my legs.

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