In-camera settings for portraiture

[allen15]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum - I've had my t2i for some time now and am at the awkward stage where I know what I'm doing but my pictures are still far from ideal.

I just bought the 85mm f/1.8 lens to take more professional-looking photographs of my kids. I'm not entirely satisfied with the predefined settings, and I tried making a user defined setting to increase the saturation. When I did this I got beautiful bokeh but the faces were way too light in comparison to the background and it made it hard to play with the colors of the faces without making the background look fake (I use aperture 2 for my editing).

So my question is... for taking both inside and outside portraits, which in-camera settings should I use? Is the portrait setting recommended or should I keep playing with making my own user-defined settings?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Robin Usagani]

I dont meant to disrespect, but really you are FAR from knowing what you are doing. You need to learn the basic. Learn how to shoot in manual mode. Start here:
Cambridge in Colour - Photography Tutorials & Learning Community

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum - I've had my t2i for some time now and am at the awkward stage where I know what I'm doing but my pictures are still far from ideal.

 

[tirediron]

You may know what you're doing when taking pictures, but you still have a ways to go to create a photograph. Schwetty provided an outstanding link; once you get through those tutorials, you'll have a much better understanding of how your camera works, and the mysteries of exposure. They key is to understand that there is no one setting; indoors, out of doors, ambient light, flash, every single situation is different. Maybe not by much, but different enough that if you don't get it right your images will suffer. Try posting some of your images for additional help.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Congrats on the new lens

 

[KmH]

Many look to gear upgrades or editing for improvements in image quality, when the biggest image quality gains are made by upgrading the photographers knowledge and skill.

Effective use of light is one area many amateur photographers need to work on.

 

[allen15]

Thanks for the link, and for the tips. I didn't mean to claim I meant I knew the intricacies of photography, I just mean that I knew how to take decent pictures, and I'm beginning to take more of an interest in improving my skill. I have taken some shots I'm quite proud of in the past, and I'm very aware that there is no "cure all" for taking great pictures. I was just very surprised at how washed out the skin tones were (I haven't had a problem this pronounced yet), and I was hoping to gain some insight into what causes that (primarily, if my tinkering with the settings could have been the culprit). From the little I DO know, I haven't the slightest idea what could have caused it, since I thought that in aperture priority mode, my settings of f/2.8 and ISO 400 would have the camera select the shutter speed that would properly exposes the faces.

I obviously have a long way to go, and I'll just keep reading and experimenting and eventually get the composition right more often

 

[tirediron]

:addpics:

 

[12sndsgood]

Thanks for the link, and for the tips. I didn't mean to claim I meant I knew the intricacies of photography, I just mean that I knew how to take decent pictures, and I'm beginning to take more of an interest in improving my skill. I have taken some shots I'm quite proud of in the past, and I'm very aware that there is no "cure all" for taking great pictures. I was just very surprised at how washed out the skin tones were (I haven't had a problem this pronounced yet), and I was hoping to gain some insight into what causes that (primarily, if my tinkering with the settings could have been the culprit). From the little I DO know, I haven't the slightest idea what could have caused it, since I thought that in aperture priority mode, my settings of f/2.8 and ISO 400 would have the camera select the shutter speed that would properly exposes the faces.

I obviously have a long way to go, and I'll just keep reading and experimenting and eventually get the composition right more often

this is why they are telling you to learn the basics about how the camera takes a photo. when you learn what all of the settings do and how they relate to each other you begin to pick up a better understanding of how the settings are going to effect the picture your taking. i have learned allot by making mistakes and then finding out what i did to cause those mistakes, 99% of the time its my mistake and not the cameras. but until you have a decent understanding of the camera you won't know why the pictures came out the way it did.

 

[DiskoJoe]

The portrait mode you are speaking of is related to the orientation of the shot (portrait or landscape). Use A-mode with the portrait setting and change the saturation and contrast in camera to what ever you want. I would also recommend buying photoshop. Much better for editing. Or use the software that came with your camera.