Top ten tips for Lighting portraits

1 Lighten up!

if your serious about shooting portraits, it’s worth investing in a home studio lighting kit; a pair of flash heads with softboxes won’t break the bank, and will make your portraits much better.

2 diffusers make a difference

softboxes, umbrellas, grids and gels will all help you to create more interesting lighting for more interesting portraits.

3 Batteries are included

invest in battery-powered lights and you’ll be fully portable and able to take amazingly lit portraits in the great outdoors too.

4 Exposure

Using lights give you full control over your exposure and lighting. shooting in Manual mode, a good starting exposure is 1/100 sec, f/8, iso160. Make sure your shutter speed is at or below your Dslr’s maximum flash sync speed – eg 1/200 sec. Use a wider aperture and longer focal length (eg f/5.6 and 70mm) if you’d like to blur your backgrounds.

5 Light levels

With your lights in softboxes, position them a few metres from your model and start off on a low power setting of 2.0, adjusting the power individually for the lighting effect you’re after.

6 Home studio

if you have a large room in your house, or spare garage space, consider investing in a backdrop roll on stands for a clean, clutter-free background that can be set up and stowed away in minutes.

7 Standard zoom lens

For full-frame cameras, like a 5D Mk iii, a 2470mm or 24-105mm lens will be the most versatile. For aps-c cameras, like a 760D or 80D, use an 18-55mm or 15-85mm lens.

8 Wide-angle = wide load!

Be wary of using wide-angle lenses at their widest focal lengths up close (eg 16mm on full-frame or 10mm on aps-c cameras) distorts people and will make faces look fat!

9 Flashguns

Don’t have the space to store a full home studio kit? a pair of flashguns on stands, along with softboxes, can work just as well.

10 Wireless triggers

Use wireless triggers and receivers to trigger your lights or flashguns – and avoid cables becoming a trip hazard and getting in the way.