Help! Night portraits with Canon 50mm/1.4 lens?

Shrizzle · Feb 19, 2017

Hi guys,
I'm still kind of beginner. I have the Canon t41 and I just bought the 50mm/ 1.4 lens. I would love to shoot night portraits with a nice bokeh effect. Like have the street lights in the background look beautifully blurred. Which are the best settings for that in manual mode? I can't quiet figure out the right ISO and shutter speed. I would appreciate your help! Thanks!

Destin · Feb 19, 2017

Nobody can tell you the proper settings as it depends on ambient light levels and conditions.

However, if you expose for the lights to get clean bokeh that isn't washed out, your subject will be almost completely dark. This is a situation where you'll need some form of fill flash or off camera lighting to get the best results.

Designer · Feb 19, 2017

Shrizzle said:
Which are the best settings for that in manual mode? I can't quiet figure out the right ISO and shutter speed.

Welcome! To blur the background (and foreground also, as it happens) you want to keep the aperture toward the wide end, so somewhere around the f/1.4 to f/2.8 should do the trick. As for the shutter speed, you will want no movement showing, so keep the shutter speed fairly high for hand-held shots, and let it stay open for longer if you mount your camera on a tripod.

As for portraiture, you're going to have a hard time keeping your model in focus, because people can't hold perfectly still for a long time. (or even a short time, actually) If I was going to try portraiture, I might try a bit of added light just on the model, allowing the background to go dark so the lights will show up.

The ISO will have to be what it has to be, so you can set the ISO to "auto", and don't be surprised if it goes off the scale because it probably will. If your camera handles under-exposure fairly well, then you'll have a useable shot, if not, it will be noisy and most likely not very good.

In summary; aperture; around f/2.8, shutter speed 1/50 of a second or faster, ISO on auto, find a location where the background is pretty far back behind your model, ask your model to hold very still, focus on her eyes if you can, use a tripod if you can, use a little bit of flash if you can, and good luck!

table1349 · Feb 19, 2017

The best way to do so is to understand the basics of photograph. This will teach those basics.
Digital Photography Tutorials

KmH · Feb 19, 2017

Using a wide (fast) aperture (f/1.4 to f/2.8) with that short a focal length for portraiture (a relatively close point of focus distance) is going to make the depth-of-field (DoF) so shallow only a very shallow slice of the portrait subject will be in focus.

Point of focus distance has more of an affect on DoF than does lens aperture when the lens aperture is 'fast'.

smoke665 · Feb 19, 2017

Not sure what you're using for post processing but another option for photographing extreme light differences is a composite. The sample below I took in December and is composed of 6 different exposures. Each contributes a part to the image, that was unattainable in a single shot.

Derrel · Feb 19, 2017

I used to do night portraiture in ther 1980's using slow color slide film of ISO 100. Typical expopsures in the city would be f/8 at ISO 100 film speed, and 15 to 20 seconds, with some street lamps providing most of the light. In dimmer areas, at ISO 400, it would be 30 seconds. The "portrait" part would be when I would zip the subject into the frame, and fire a single Pop! of electronic flash at them, usually a full-power 285HV pop from 10 to 15 feet or so. This is, in effect two exposures: a timed-exposure shot for the cityscape, and a flash shot for the person.

Look into the subject of light painting for more information on this method.

Shrizzle · Feb 20, 2017

Designer said:
Shrizzle said:

Which are the best settings for that in manual mode? I can't quiet figure out the right ISO and shutter speed.

Click to expand...

Welcome! To blur the background (and foreground also, as it happens) you want to keep the aperture toward the wide end, so somewhere around the f/1.4 to f/2.8 should do the trick. As for the shutter speed, you will want no movement showing, so keep the shutter speed fairly high for hand-held shots, and let it stay open for longer if you mount your camera on a tripod.

As for portraiture, you're going to have a hard time keeping your model in focus, because people can't hold perfectly still for a long time. (or even a short time, actually) If I was going to try portraiture, I might try a bit of added light just on the model, allowing the background to go dark so the lights will show up.

The ISO will have to be what it has to be, so you can set the ISO to "auto", and don't be surprised if it goes off the scale because it probably will. If your camera handles under-exposure fairly well, then you'll have a useable shot, if not, it will be noisy and most likely not very good.

In summary; aperture; around f/2.8, shutter speed 1/50 of a second or faster, ISO on auto, find a location where the background is pretty far back behind your model, ask your model to hold very still, focus on her eyes if you can, use a tripod if you can, use a little bit of flash if you can, and good luck!