Setting up Self Portrait

[mcflickr]

Hi Everyone,

Okay, terribly vain question here. I'm the only one in my family who's comfortable with a camera, and am looking to try to get a decent picture of myself that's, you know, in focus, decently exposed, etc. Essentially, how do I take a great "selfie" without it looking like one. Might actually want to take it a step further and get a nice photo with my kids and wife. Any recommendations on how to setup a photo (particularly the focus piece). Also, should I remotely trigger, or set a timer?

Would love any advice.

 

[sscarmack]

I use the self timer...


What I usually do is mark a spot where I'm going to sit or stand, and then place a light stand or a chair there and focus on that.

Then set it to manual focus.

Trial and error from there.

 

[hamlet]

The way i do it is put my camera on live view so i can get the face priority focus, then i use my little remote and let the camera focus on my face and take the picture.

 

[kdthomas]

I decided to get a little crazy with mine ... I was playing around with longer exposures and made the one in my avatar. That one was with a single 75W tungten bulb in ceiling fan, ASA100 f/5.6 13sec. I opened the shutter with a remote, made an angry teeth-baring expression, and slowly shook my head back & forth. Then in GIMP I isolated mostly the red channel with a little green.

My GF hates it, but I think it's cool :mrgreen:

 

[dennybeall]

There's always the live tripod method. Great for getting strange expressions from waitresses.
At lunch with my wife and son with his family and wanted to actually be in a picture for a change. Handed the Nikon, in Auto mode, to the waitress and said point this at us please.
Took the remote in hand and shot a bunch of pictures. The look on her face as the camera went off over and over was priceless...

 

[ZombieQueen]

I use a tripod and remote, get some sweet shots.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Yes the tripod and remote is the way to go if you're concerned about focus, especially with a shallow Depth of Feild. You'll get the hang of positioning yourself in frame fairly quickly if you guess and check a bit.

 

[Scoody]

To focus I get my camera off the tripod, sit where I am going position myself for the photo, manual focus on the tripod then mount the camera back on the tripod. Release the shutter with a wireless remote.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Scoody, That's the most brilliant odd solution I've heard to this problem. How well does it actually work in practice?

 

[Braineack]

Scoody, That's the most brilliant odd solution I've heard to this problem. How well does it actually work in practice?

I have issues with this method, I just use this crazy thing called auto-focus.

 

[Scoody]

Scoody, That's the most brilliant odd solution I've heard to this problem. How well does it actually work in practice?

It works pretty well. On rare occassions when going for very shallow depth of field the photos can come out a tad soft due to the slight difference to the couple of inches between focusing on the tripod itself and where the lens of the camera winds up.

 

[mcflickr]

Thanks for all the suggestions - Sounds like more of a trial and error game. I'll see what I come up with and maybe post the results. I like the idea of using the remote trigger, but was mostly concerned about nailing the focus.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Scoody, That's the most brilliant odd solution I've heard to this problem. How well does it actually work in practice?

It works pretty well. On rare occassions when going for very shallow depth of field the photos can come out a tad soft due to the slight difference to the couple of inches between focusing on the tripod itself and where the lens of the camera winds up.

A wireless remote may make your life a bit easier if you do a lot of self portraiture I remember shooting an entire self portraiture project without a remote shutter release and I walked probably a mile per day in a tiny studio, I decided to get a remote soon afterword.

 

[Braineack]

remote is vital.

 

[manny212]

I'll usually tape a piece of paper with some writing on it to a light stand that I've pre measured to the height I want , i.e. my eyes .

Then with camera mounted on tripod I either auto or manual ( fine with both )

I use a wireless release but also set the camera timer to two seconds , remotes fail sometimes , when I see the light go off on camera I'm assured it will snap in two seconds .