When shooting paid portaits, I rarely shooter faster than f4, usually more towards f5.6.
There are cases where faster is useful, but they are more the exception than the rule. On trick is to not put them too close to the background - that way they are all in focus and the background is not. Or you can use a background that doesn't compete with the subject. I do agree that the eyes have to be sharp. If they are, then a little softness in other areas can be forgiven or ignored by the viewer, but if the eyes are soft, no matter what else you do, the picture is not acceptable. That is one of the reasons I find manual focus so important when shooting people/portraits/weddings. You have to get the right focus and don't want to be fussing with focus locking/recomposing or fiddling with trying to set the right focus point. Just use your eyes and turn the focus ring to the right spot. -- Best regards, Bruce Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 10:25:20 AM, you wrote: GD> On Oct 17, 2007, at 9:49 AM, Cotty wrote: >> On 17/10/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED], discombobulated, unleashed: >> >>> And less than 2.8 is frequently the stop of choice for portraiture. >> >> or even 1.4 ;-))) GD> Huh? I dunno about anyone else, but I need about 1-1.5 feet DoF as a GD> minimum at 7' focus distance for a conventional H&S portrait to GD> obtain razor sharp eyes and acceptably sharp nose to shoulders, with GD> a nicely soft backdrop. GD> With an 75mm lens on a 35mm film SLR, that requires f/8. GD> - GD> Subject distance 7 ft GD> Depth of field GD> Near limit 6.43 ft GD> Far limit 7.67 ft GD> Total 1.24 ft GD> In front of subject 0.57 ft (46%) GD> Behind subject 0.67 ft (54%) GD> - GD> With a 43mm lens on a Pentax DSLR, it presents a somewhat wider FoV, GD> but f/4 works well to produce a very similar image: GD> - GD> Subject distance 7 ft GD> Depth of field GD> Near limit 6.42 ft GD> Far limit 7.7 ft GD> Total 1.28 ft GD> In front of subject 0.58 ft (45%) GD> Behind subject 0.7 ft (55%) GD> - GD> Shooting with either at f/2.8 or larger lens openings creates GD> unsharpness in the foreground (at the nose) of a H&S portrait, which GD> is distracting and looks bad. GD> Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
