NIKON SCHOOL
We get some advice from Neil Freeman
WHAT ARE THE CORE SKILLS FOR PORTRAIT/FILM-SET PHOTOGRAPHY?
A great portrait should tell a story, and this can be created using aperture, lighting and focal length to ensure that the subject stands out from the background. Shooting a portrait at an aperture of f2 or f2.8 will create a blurred background behind your subject. Try to combine this with shooting at a longer focal length such as 200mm (rather than 50mm or 85mm) which will then compress the perspective of the image. If you then light your subject to change the ratio of light falling on your subject and the background, you will further enhance how your final image looks.
HOW CAN THE NIKON SCHOOL HELP YOU TO DEVELOP THESE SKILLS?
At Nikon School, we have extensive experience with portrait photography covering everything from studio setups to urban portrait shoots and action street shoots. We have a range of courses across all ability levels that cover subjects such as controlling aperture, the best focal length to use, composition techniques and lighting action portraits.
Our courses such as ‘Getting Started with Portrait Photography’ will give you the confidence to take great portrait shots across a range of lighting conditions. Once you have mastered these skills our more advanced courses such as ‘Art of Urban Portraits’, ‘Art of Film Noir’ and ‘Hollywood Action’ show you how to build an interesting story about the subject, allowing you to get great portrait shots in any situation.
WHAT IS THE ADVANTAGE OF THE NIKON SYSTEM FOR PORTRAIT/FILM-SET PHOTOGRAPHY?
Nikon cameras allow for full aperture control, giving photographers very fine control over the amount of background blur in their images. Higher-end cameras such as the D7500, D500 and D850 also support either the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) or Advanced Wireless Lighting System
(AWL). These systems are built into the cameras or speedlights and allow for either infrared, light pulse or radio control of the speedlights off-camera if required. The
Nikon TTL system is incredibly easy to use and understand, enabling photographers to create complicated-looking images very quickly, and by using the very wide dynamic range in Nikon cameras you can also capture much more detail in the highlights and shadows of an image.
“Nikon cameras allow very fine control over the amount of background blur”
WHAT COURSES DO YOU RECOMMEND?
For beginners who want to learn more about portraits specifically, we would recommend ‘Getting Started with Portrait Photography’. For enthusiasts and more advanced photographers wanting to try something different we would recommend our ‘Art of’ series. This covers everything from shooting urban portraits, creating film noir images and Hollywood action scenes with stunt performers to photographing dancers in urban environments.