Choosing wide apertures

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dancook

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I've been looking at pixel-peeper.com to see a variety of 'portrait' photos taken between f1.2 and f2.0 on a prime lens.

These have varied from babies to adult and at varying distances.

Knowing which aperture to use for different photos, does that come with experience? Or is there a rule of thumb to follow?

By a rule of thumb, I wonder whether it might be something like:
"To 'pop' a subject from the background with an 85L, headshot use 2.0, half body 1.6, full body use 1.2?"
 
dancook said:
I've been looking at pixel-peeper.com to see a variety of 'portrait' photos taken between f1.2 and f2.0 on a prime lens.

These have varied from babies to adult and at varying distances.

Knowing which aperture to use for different photos, does that come with experience? Or is there a rule of thumb to follow?

By a rule of thumb, I wonder whether it might be something like:
"To 'pop' a subject from the background with an 85L, headshot use 2.0, half body 1.6, full body use 1.2?"
Click to expand...

As with anything It all depends on what you want from your image. There are no rules for anything. Also what works would depends and many situations most of all the lighting conditions, background lighting, background colours loads of things. Every image is different.
 
Would also depend on how far background is from subject and how big their head is, how much of they head is in frame etc,. etc,.
You should have an idea of what is required and then check the shot and amend as using 1.2 is also going to need a check anyway isn't it?
 
I've been practicing my portraits on colleagues, not posed - just whilst people in conversation.

Been using manual focus and so far my 1.2 has been hit and miss :) I had a half body shot with great focus on the shirt/neck - but the face blurred! I didn't notice it when I took the shot, so I should learn to look harder!

Here was a 1.2 headshot, couldn't really tell on the camera but I can see that it might have been better to get more depth of focus - this might turn into a bit of trial and error.


Stam - 85mm test by dancook1982, on Flickr

I quite liked the result of this at 1.2


Doug - 85mm test by dancook1982, on Flickr

More + more practice I guess :)
 
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Shooting at wide apertures, particularly fairly close, takes some practice. Remember the slightest movement of you or your subject will alter your focus.

An 85mm headshot at f1.2, you've probably only got about half an inch of DOF, so it's very easy to get it wrong. :)
 
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