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Dave Johnson

"How to Do Everything: Digital Camera 5 edition"

Take pictures periodically as you pose your subjects to get them used to the shutter
going off, even if it isn??™t a picture you intend to keep.
Digital cameras have a cool advantage for portraiture that film SLRs don??™t: the LCD display
lets you put your subject more at ease. Try framing your picture using the LCD display, keeping
the camera some distance away from your face. That leaves you free to interact with your subject
without having an intimidating camera obscuring your head.
The best way to capture portraits is typically with the medium telephoto lens: in the 35mm
world, that would be about 100mm. For a typical digital camera, that??™s near the maximum
magnification for your zoom lens. You can see such a portrait in the image on the left in
Figure 3-11. The version on the right, which has a fish-eye appearance, is what happens when
you take a portrait too close, with the lens set to its wider position. It??™s also a good idea to
work in aperture priority mode if possible. Aperture priority will allow you to change the depth
of field quickly and easily as you frame your images. Specifically, good portraits have very
shallow depth of field. You want to draw attention to the subject of your picture and leave the
background an indistinct blur.


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