While depth of field is often discussed in portrait photography, the conversation tends to focus on background bokeh. However, in this article and the accompanying video, I want to cover depth of field as it relates to the face itself and try to answer the question of what aperture is best for photographing faces.
Headshot vs portrait
The first distinction I want to make when choosing an aperture is whether I’m shooting a close-up or a portrait. For clarity, I consider a head shot to be just the head and shoulders, while a portrait is anything with a looser crop. I also distinguish between portraits and my studio portraits by the lighting I use and the pose used. My head shots tend towards simple and clear lighting, while my portrait work can be much more dramatic and, lack of a better word, artistic.
As a general rule, when I’m taking a front-facing shot, I want to keep the entire face or almost the entire face sharp, for a number of reasons. First, face shots are primarily a tool, whether capturing business customers or customers in action. The purpose of the photo is to show a natural expression and capture the subject at the best time at the time, to help them get noticed and develop their career. For these reasons, I don’t want the subject’s face to be partially out of focus and would like to keep the entire face relatively sharp, perhaps with only the slightly soft ears.
Since I usually shoot face-to-face shots, this is relatively easy to do and always looks good. When I angle subjects shot with my glasses, I usually do it subtly and avoid what I jokingly call “extreme posing,” which is when photographers angle people to such an extent that they looks like it’s falling off a cliff!
But even with subtle posing, it’s important to realize that if you’re shooting with an aperture that’s too wide, one eye will be in focus and the other will be soft. Before I go on, I should mention here that I always focus on the eye closest to the lens, or if they point straight in, the right eye. However, if you do this and shoot wide while the subject is at an angle, the shallow depth of field can become distracting and detract from the final success of the head shot, which is what we recommend. obviously don’t want to do. This is not to say that a head shot can’t be creative and eye-catching, and I certainly don’t want to give you the impression that it’s not an artistic endeavor, but I’m saying that personally For me, a head and Shoulder headshot is where I want to strike a balance between form and function.
Because of all of this, I tend to shoot headshots anywhere between f/3.5 and f/5.6, using a 70-200mm lens at around 100mm. This way, the entire face or almost the entire face is in sharp focus. As I mentioned before, softening my subject’s ears is fine, as I don’t think it will distract from the image and the ear is usually not where you want people to focus in the first place. It’s important to avoid things like a sharp eye and a blurry eye or a sharp eye with a blurry nose. This will just look weird and distract the viewer.
However, when I create portraits, I throw all these self-imposed “rules” out the window and instead, flex my creative muscles and do my best to provide provide clients with images that are not only unique and eye-catching, but also influenced by my artistic side. I do this for all types of clients, including business professionals, actors, musicians, authors and the like, and this is where I always keep my eyes open, despite my mindset. I about this has changed recently which I will discuss later.
The sin of stopping
We photographers are strange creatures. I’m sure I’m not the only one with one or more fast, sharp lenses, and almost feel that stopping when shooting portraits is a creative sin. I spent a lot of money to get that amazing bokeh, and it’s so cool, I want to see it in my pictures! Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this, and I’ve brought this same philosophy into my portrait work, and until recently, I’ve been shooting almost all of my portraits in low-light mode. extend.
And to be clear, I love this look for several reasons. First, there’s more going on in a portrait photo than in a front-facing shot, so it’s easy to get distracted from your subject’s unique face. Using a shallow depth of field in this case can add more drama to the overall image, while helping to keep the extra elements in the image in place – sub. This is something I will do quite often when working with musicians holding instruments. Since I want the face to remain the main focus of the photo, I want to get the instrument or any other props in the image out of focus. Second, I use much more dramatic lighting styles when I’m shooting portraits and like a lot of dust from one subject to another, or even from the subject’s face to their body. This means that elements of the image that are out of focus also tend to be in the darker areas of the frame, again bringing out the most important part of the image, the face. I would do this even in well-cropped portraits where the eyes become the main subject. I talk about this a bit more in my articles and videos on photographing musicians, which can be found here.
The third consideration is whether your subject is looking directly at the camera. I find that when a subject is looking away from the camera, I don’t mind when one eye is in sharp focus while the other is out of focus. In some ways, I think it adds to the mystery of the portrait because the viewer is slightly removed from the scene, almost like an outsider looking in. A shallow depth of field not only adds drama, but can also add a sense of unease to a photo, which only makes it more appealing.
For this reason, one of my pre-portrait preparations is what I call a “Political Poster,” where I place my subjects and let them look up and out, like like they are contemplating their future or ready to complete a monumental task. I really like this pose and I’ve used it for all kinds of artists, actors, and even occasional entrepreneurs who want to convey a strong, powerful message through their images. As I mentioned, I like to associate a shallow depth of field with this pose and often color grading these images as well, which enhances the effect.
Just Stop (Down) Already
Before I make it a simple matter and ask you to stop for close-ups and wide shots for portraits, I’ll take a moment to remind you that it’s not nearly as simple as that. As with anything related to the arts or creative pursuits, for every “rule” we’re given, there are plenty of examples of people breaking them with incredible success. This is why I always put the “R” in my quotes and prefer to teach people principles rather than rules.
I was reminded of this recently while experimenting with mixed light during a consultation with a portrait photographer in London. Ivan Weiss. The light combines both continuous light and strobe light, with the key light placed close to the subject without being diffused. The setup forced me to do the unthinkable and stop my lens, which I only did because the flash was too bright, even at the lowest power. Looking back, I’m glad I needed to use a smaller aperture, because I absolutely love the results. The image is extremely sharp and almost 3D quality. I also like to see all the details in the background, which is something I don’t get when taking wide shots. Since many lenses are sharpest when stopped and can be slightly extended, the image of my photographer friend John below taken at f / 10 gives a very different side to the Canon EF 50mm f lens. my old /1.4.
The answer is simple: It’s complicated
For those looking for the simple “do this, not that” answer, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Just when I thought I had figured out what aperture worked best for portraits and for head shots, I was once again challenged to rethink the self-imposed rules I worked by. And I’m glad I was forced to do something that I wouldn’t do otherwise, because it reminds me that much of what we do as photographers and artists is subjective, and not based only on our artistic sensibilities but also on our subject matter and the goals we have for the image we are creating. Not only this, but the way I shoot today is intrinsically tied to where I am in my journey as a photographer at this point, which is encouraging because every photo I take is an opportunity. to develop as well as reflect.
This doesn’t mean I’m going to give up the general principles I use in my portrait and portraiture work, but it should serve as a gentle reminder to you that the most important is to keep experimenting, keep challenging yourself and also try out the principles in this article and video, as it will surely help you to find your own unique vision as a photographer.
