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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Xpert Advice

Xpert Advice: Slightly Stop a Lens Down When Focusing on The Eyes in Portraiture

Chris Gampat
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05/15/2015
2 Mins read

Chris Gampat the Phoblographer Fujifilm Xpert Advice Portrait Lens Photo (1 of 1)ISO 4001-125 sec at f - 2.4

Lots of folks will tell you that you should always focus on the eyes when shooting a portrait. Why? Because eyes are the metaphorical windows to the soul. It’s very easy for those photographers to also get caught up in shooting portraits with their lenses wide open all the time.

Don’t do that–especially when working with portraits.

If you’re shooting a portrait and the eyes are all that’s in focus, you’re not giving your portrait subject more depth. Instead, try stopping down just a little bit to ensure that the eyes are not only tack sharp but that you also have a bit more in focus–like their face. Sure, the eyes can tell you a lot but so too can the face.

With Fujifilm’s X series interchangeable lens cameras, you don’t need to stop down a lot. Because of the 1.5x crop factor of the APS-C X Trans sensor, you’ll have more in focus at a given aperture than you will with a full frame camera. That means that at f1.2 on the 56mm f1.2 lens, you’ll have the equivalent depth of field of 1.2 x 1.5 which = f1.8’s equivalent depth of field with a full frame camera. So try getting more of your subject in focus rather than just concentrating on just their iris.

For even better results, use Fujifilm’s Astia film rendering. This film was developed for portraiture due to the soft colors and the way that it handles skin tones. We’d also be doing you lots of injustice if we told you to not worry about lighting. Backlighting your subject is often a great method, but try to go for softer light like that from a window.

Xpert Advice is a monthly collaboration between the Phoblographer and Fujifilm designed to teach you photography tips and tricks in a bite-sized package.

56mm f1.2 eyes fujifilm lens portraits
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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