10 Tips for Taking Better Portraits on Any Camera
By: Paulo Makalinao
Tags: Portraits, Tips, Photography, Art, Creativity

You’re starting to dive into the realm of portrait photography, or maybe you just find yourself taking more pictures of your friends with your smartphone when you go out. Regardless, here are 10 tips for taking better portraits, whether you use your phone, a point and shoot, a mirrorless camera, or a DSLR.

#1. Optimize Your Gear

Make sure you are using the best settings and best available tools in order to capture your portrait. On a smartphone, this might mean simply putting your camera into portrait mode in order to get a blurred background. It’s an artificial blur but still produces pretty nice results and better ones than the default camera. However, if you do want that wide angle portrait look, you can leave your camera in its default mode instead since portrait modes are tighter and more telephoto.

On a DSLR, mirrorless, or point and shoot camera, this can be different depending on what you have. If you don’t have a whole lot of gear yet (maybe just the kit zoom or a permanently attached lens), zoom in that lens a little bit into the more telephoto range (for a more traditional portrait look)and crank the aperture as wide as it goes to get the most blur in the background. As with your phone, you can leave the lens on wider focal length if that’s the look you’re going for. Regardless, I recommend getting used to the manual modes of your camera to achieve this rather than relying on something more automatic. The ideal mode for those still learning their camera is aperture priority.

If you have the pleasure of using a prime lens like a 35mm, 50mm, or 85mm, slap that right on your camera body, and again, widen that aperture either as wide as it goes or one-stop darker (usually for better image quality, less vignetting, and better focusing). With primes, you can usually open your aperture all the way to f/1.8 or f/1.4, giving you an incredibly blurred and bokeh filled background for an absolutely creamy portrait.

#2. Find and or Make a Clean Background

No one likes a cluttered and distracting background. A bright orange cone, for example, can really take away from your subject and instead direct the viewer’s attention away from what you want them to see. Make sure your background doesn’t have anything that sticks out too much or would be an eyesore to see like a trash can. In addition, make sure that it doesn’t look like anything is popping out of your subject’s head either (a pole is a good example of this). But you don’t have to get super involved with cleaning up the background, and it doesn’t need to be overdone. A few cars or a few trees is totally fine, but taking the time to remove the water bottle behind your subject is definitely worth the 30 seconds it takes, especially if you’re a perfectionist like myself.

#3. Find the Right Lighting

The most important aspect of photography is lighting. After all, the word photo derives itself from the word photon (not necessarily but the two are related). The key to getting good lighting when you’re beginning to take portraits is evenness. That’s why shooting in shaded areas or during a slightly overcast day is always highly recommended. But shooting around half an hour before sunset or after sunrise, the period right around golden hour, is the most ideal as the light is usually very even in many different places. I try to plan all my shoots during this time period.

But don’t be discouraged from trying other things in finding the right lighting. Shooting at golden hour or in shade is a good rule of thumb, but don’t limit yourself. Getting photos in direct sunlight can also yield amazing results as long as the light from the sun falls evenly again on your subject’s face. Usually, this means having them almost directly face the sun as long as they can avoid squinting for a second or two. You can also shoot at night! Just make sure to find a nice bright street lamp to nicely illuminate your subject. But whether using a street lamp or in direct sunlight, the keyword here is still evenness, making sure your subject is void of harsh shadows.

And sometimes, lighting doesn’t always have to be even either. You can intentionally have your subject turn 90 degrees from the light source, giving a dramatic half-lit, half-shadow type of look. But the keyword here with having non-even lighting is intention. Non-traditional lighting is something you really have to commit to the idea of in order to get it right.