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If you have thought about doing portraits with your Canon EOS digital SLR camera, you are not alone. Portraiture may be the most popular photography applications pursued by amateurs and pros alike.
You might be surprised to know that having the perfect Canon portrait lens is not the most critical part of getting a great portrait. But a good lens will definitely go a long way toward getting you to that great image.
Being a portrait photographer can truly be a pretty glamorous career. If you get good at it, you could be photographing the very famous people. And you would be dong it in a very different way than the paparazzi, who are not very well thought of in the photography business. Besides, what they do is not portrait photography.
Most portrait photographers are not shooting famous people though. There is plenty of work in the field that does not include actors, singers, and other glitzy individuals.
There is the individual portrait opportunity, family portraits, high school senior photos, babies, and even pet portraits. So there is no shortage of opportunities.
Depth Of Field - Your #1 Goal
As a portrait photographer, the portrait lens is as important as the camera you attach it to. You will want your portraits to have certain qualities that make the model or subject a very special part of the picture. The first thing you want is a narrow depth of field. This means that the plane of focus is shallow, putting the other objects in the photograph out of focus. This brings the viewer's eyes right to the subject.
Great portrait lenses accomplish this shallow depth of field by allowing the picture to be taken with a very quick shutter speed. This is accomplished by having a wide aperture, usually f/2.8 or wider. In fact, the better lenses have apertures as wide as f/1.2. The result of using a wide aperture is that you get a depth of field that is far more sleek and sexy. Your subject will love their picture (and you). And you will feel like you accomplished a portrait that could go head to head against the pros.
What Focal Length?
Another feature you will want as a portrait photo shooter is the right focal length lens. The majority of photographers who do portrait work use a single or prime focal length, meaning the lens does not zoom at all. You can employ a lens that has a 50mm length, but that is the absolute shortest that you should use. Any shorter and you have to get too close to your subject. A better focal length is somewhere between 75mm and 150mm. This gives the photographer a better combination of depth of field, distance from the subject, and flexibility in choosing the perspective.
Using a lens that is too short will create unpleasant facial feature exaggerations, like the ears will be too large for the head. Everyone has seen those images of the cows where the cow's nose looks way out of proportion when compared to the rest of the animal. That is done on purpose, of course, using a wide angle lens (less than 50mm) and getting too close to the subject. It's a humorous shot, but not one that a high school senior would appreciate in their final yearbook.
There are also lots of photographers who use zoom lenses for portraits. One of the most popular is the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 zoom lens. You can imagine how much flexibility a lens like that will give you as you set up your shot.
The good news is that just about any lens can double as a portrait lens. If you know how to pull it off, you can take great portraits with you cell phone.
A Little Trick To Get Better Backgrounds
Depth of field has been mentioned as one of the things that can make your portrait special. A trick you can try is to move your model or subject farther away from the background. In other words, put as much distance as you can between the model and the background. This will put the background out of focus and compensate for the lack of a wide aperture.
Most of your friends and family think that you can take great portraits if you own a Digital SLR camera. Truth is, you can. But if you want to do even better, get yourself a great portrait lens.
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