how to take realistic pictures of faces ?

[babel]

hello
i'm a beginer and i would like to know if they are specific camera and technics to take realistic pictures of faces, i mean pictures that reflect the real life persons faces not a distorted one
what camera do you suggest me ? and is there so particular technique used ?


thx alots

 

[sashbar]

There are no specific cameras for taking pictures of faces and real life persons, any decent camera will do it. It is more about lenses that you are using. Wide lenses exaggerate perspective and distort fases, zooms flatten perspective and are complimentary in that respect. Here are some of my shots with a 55-200 lense on a APS-C sensor. This is the same size sensor as used in all beginners DSLRs, like Nikon, Canon or Pentax. This type of camera - any modern beginners DSLR - is most cost effective and gives you a widest choice of lenses and great image quality.

Some street portraits with some more Photography Forum

If you want to learn how to take proper portraits, I would suggest buying a book on the subject, there are lots of books that explain all the basics and beyond.

 

[babel]

thank you guy, the pictures are beautiful, what camera did you use ?

so any modern camera can avoid lense distortion?

 

[sashbar]

thank you guy, the pictures are beautiful, what camera did you use ?

so any modern camera can avoid lense distortion?

There are different types of distortions produced by different lenses. There are radial distortions ( mostly barrel and pincushion) that are minimal or negligible with good lenses and can be easily fixed these days in post processing or even by the camera engine itself. That is not what you need to be concerned about at this stage.

There are also perspective distortions caused by the focal length of the lense in relation to a sensor size used by the camera. That is what you should be concerned about when shooting people. Wide lenses distort faces simply because they distort perspective, this is not a fault, this is how they are made on purpose to have a wide field of view, and you can not correct it in post processing. You just need to use longer focal range lenses.

With APS-C sensor camera you can take great portraits with 50+ mm focal length, although most photographers will tell you that something like 85 mm would be more desirable. It all depends on what kind of portrait you are after. With a larger sensor you will need a longer focal length. With smaller sensors shorter focal lengths will do. For a group portrait you will need a somehow wider lense, for a close-up you will need a longer focal length lense, like 85 or 120 mm on APS-C sensor camera.

Talking about sensors, you should avoid cameras with a small sensor, not because of distortion, but because of poorer image quality. You should buy a camera with a sensor that is at least 4/3 (most mirrorless cameras), or even better, APS-C size (some mirrorless and all beginners and intermediates DSLRs) . You can go all the way and buy a full frame camera, but it will be big, heavy and will cost you a lot. But these are nice cameras. You can google "sensor sizes" to get familiar with this, it is important to know

I personally would recommend a DSLR camera with APS-C size sensor. It is relatively not expensive, gives you high quality images and have great variety of lenses. Having shot different cameras, I personally would be torn between Nikon and Pentax, both excellent modern cameras. Canon would be my distant third choice, but it is also a very good camera.
All these cameras will give you amazing image quality, you will not be disappointed, guaranteed. I shot those images with FUJI X-T1 which I prefer to all those cameras, but it costs more.

Good luck. Get a camera, start shooting people, post your images here for comments and critique, and there are some top portraiture pros on this forum that will guide you in the right direction

AS for particular technique, it is impossible to explain in a forum post, buy something like this
Portrait Photography From Snapshots to Great Shots Amazon.co.uk Erik Valind 9780321951618 Books

it will entertain you for the next year or two.

This one is also highly regarded:
Direction and Quality of Light Amazon.co.uk Neil van Niekerk 9781608955701 Books

 

[fjrabon]

The biggest thing is you want to shoot from 10-15 feet away. It's not the lens that causes perspective distortion, it's the working distance from your subject.

 

[PropilotBW]

I think it also has to do with eliminating a lot of the background so the actual person occupies a majority of the frame. Zoom in tight with the person's face. I don't necessarily think 10-15 feet is necessary, may be too close if you don't know the person... You could have a super-telephoto lens and accomplish the same result from across the street.

 

[KmH]

Also important is the light quality and direction.

 

[fjrabon]

I think it also has to do with eliminating a lot of the background so the actual person occupies a majority of the frame. Zoom in tight with the person's face. I don't necessarily think 10-15 feet is necessary, may be too close if you don't know the person... You could have a super-telephoto lens and accomplish the same result from across the street.

Sure, there are a lot of other considerations, but if your consideration is "normal looking" perspective, then it's 10-15 feet. There may be times you want more feeling of depth (shoot closer) or times you want more compression (shoot from further away). As KmH also stated, lighting can enhance or hide depth/perspective distortion cues. Flat and axial lighting will lessen depth, side and hard lighting will enhance depth.

I don't even understand what you're getting at with "10-15 feet may be too close if you don't know the person." Are you talking about using a telephoto to snipe pictures of people who don't know you're photographing them? Anybody you're doing portraits of should be comfortable with you at a distance of 10-15 feet, or else you're not doing your job.

A super telephoto from across the street will not have the same "look" as a normal or short telephoto from 10-15 feet away. No matter how much you zoom in, they'll have a compressed look. Which can be flattering if used intentionally and effectively. But for portraits you should be selecting your working distance based on how you want your subjects to look, you SHOULD NOT be basing your distance on how far away you want to be.

If you're doing portraits, start with how much compression/depth you want their face to have, then use that distance as your shooting distance. Then pick your focal length based on how much of their body/the environment you want in the frame. If your background isn't right with that, then you either pick a new background or make compromise in either compression/depth by shooting further away with a telephoto. Or you can have less of the subject's body in the frame.

But bringing this back to what the OP asked, to have what the human brain interprets as a "normal looking" face proportion wise, you need to be 10-15 feet away. If you are closer than that to the subject, the closer parts of the body to the camera will be outsized and the further parts too small. Further from the camera than that and you get compression (which, again, can be flattering, but it isn't strictly "natural").

 

[PropilotBW]

I think it also has to do with eliminating a lot of the background so the actual person occupies a majority of the frame. Zoom in tight with the person's face. I don't necessarily think 10-15 feet is necessary, may be too close if you don't know the person... You could have a super-telephoto lens and accomplish the same result from across the street.

Sure, there are a lot of other considerations, but if your consideration is "normal looking" perspective, then it's 10-15 feet. There may be times you want more feeling of depth (shoot closer) or times you want more compression (shoot from further away). As KmH also stated, lighting can enhance or hide depth/perspective distortion cues. Flat and axial lighting will lessen depth, side and hard lighting will enhance depth.

I don't even understand what you're getting at with "10-15 feet may be too close if you don't know the person." Are you talking about using a telephoto to snipe pictures of people who don't know you're photographing them? Anybody you're doing portraits of should be comfortable with you at a distance of 10-15 feet, or else you're not doing your job.

A super telephoto from across the street will r portraits you should be selecting your working distance based on how you want your subjects to look, you SHOULD NOT be basing your distance on how far away you want to be").

All I was saying, if I were taking street candids of homeless bums, , 10-15' isn't very inconspicuous. I would be across the street.

 

[fjrabon]

I think it also has to do with eliminating a lot of the background so the actual person occupies a majority of the frame. Zoom in tight with the person's face. I don't necessarily think 10-15 feet is necessary, may be too close if you don't know the person... You could have a super-telephoto lens and accomplish the same result from across the street.

Sure, there are a lot of other considerations, but if your consideration is "normal looking" perspective, then it's 10-15 feet. There may be times you want more feeling of depth (shoot closer) or times you want more compression (shoot from further away). As KmH also stated, lighting can enhance or hide depth/perspective distortion cues. Flat and axial lighting will lessen depth, side and hard lighting will enhance depth.

I don't even understand what you're getting at with "10-15 feet may be too close if you don't know the person." Are you talking about using a telephoto to snipe pictures of people who don't know you're photographing them? Anybody you're doing portraits of should be comfortable with you at a distance of 10-15 feet, or else you're not doing your job.

A super telephoto from across the street will r portraits you should be selecting your working distance based on how you want your subjects to look, you SHOULD NOT be basing your distance on how far away you want to be").

All I was saying, if I were taking street candids of homeless bums, , 10-15' isn't very inconspicuous. I would be across the street.

If a photographer is taking street candids of homeless bums without talking to them and providing any real context for their story, they should probably stop that first. That's essentially exploiting someone's misfortune for the photographer's own "gain" and it even has a non-flattering name: "homeless porn."

Regardless, wanting to snipe pictures of homeless people from across the street has nothing to do with the OP's question of how to get "realistic pictures of faces." Wether you have a need for being inconspicuous has nothing to do with how to get what the human visual system judges as "normal" on the depth/compression scale of the human face. Sure, your need for being inconspicuous may outweigh your need for having a "proper depth" face, or you may even want more compression as an artistic choice, but need for inconspicuousness doesn't change physics.

Multiple studies have been done to confirm that we remember faces as they look from 10-15 feet away, even if we didn't actually see them from that distance. There are a few "just so" stories as to why our brain seems to pick this distance, but we can't really know for sure. The leading theory is 15 feet is close enough to positively identify with high accuracy, but far enough to run away if the person is judged as a foe. So our brain remembers faces as they look from 15 feet, so that 15 feet is at peak accuracy for quick judgment of identity. This means that pictures of faces taken from 10-15 feet away tend to be seen as the "most realistic" looking images.

 

[Braineack]

Just take pictures. It's pretty simple, if you're having trouble making faces look realistic, please post them so we can see how to remedy.

using tapatalk.

 

[Designer]

hello
i'm a beginer and i would like to know if they are specific camera and technics to take realistic pictures of faces, i mean pictures that reflect the real life persons faces not a distorted one
what camera do you suggest me ? and is there so particular technique used ?


thx alots

Dear babel; (the screen name seems to fit)

No specific camera, but LOTS of technique. The camera-to-subject distance has been discussed.

KmH has reminded you of the importance of good lighting.

I suggest you obtain any SLR that is within your price range and couple that with a short-to-medium length telephoto lens. I also recommend that you obtain and learn to use a flash that you can operate at least an arm's length away from the camera.

This is the beginning of technique, but the whole story is far too complicated to simply blurt it out in one forum post.

 

[rexbobcat]

The simplest and most straightforward way is to use longer focal lengths.

Stick with 85mm and up. 50mm and below will give noticeable distortion the closer you get to a person's face.