Hi All,
I've been vexed a bit with this for a while. If I'm taking a full length portrait with a normal lens, my instinct is to want to keep both standards parallel with the subject. So if there were no movements, the camera would be about belt height, which I don't think is good.
I think that's how I ended up with this picture, I'm not sure (it was one of my first), but it feels like the picture is centered on his belt with a little distortion (this is 180mm on a 5x7, so a little wide)
Andy by Paul McEvoy, on Flickr
So...My instinct is to put the camera about Adam's Apple height, and then use a lot of front drop (on my usual portrait camera, that's all I have available) to bring the feet into the picture.
I actually don't have enough front drop to do this though, particularly for a tall person. Then my alternatives are
1) drop the tripod height to where the combination of front drop and camera height get the person entirely in frame (except I don't really have enough front drop...I end up with the camera feeling too low, so I end up cutting off people's feet like:
Mike in the Back Yard by Paul McEvoy, on Flickr
I haven't really worked with the camera much lower than that but I'm paranoid it's going to look weird (I know...just need to try it).
or
2) use a combination of front drop and tripod tilt (I don't have front tilt) to get the person in frame, and then rear tilt (got that!) to get the proportions right. That works, sorta, except then I get inconsistent DOF on the subject, have to use a wider aperture or end up with this:
Mary Ann by Paul McEvoy, on Flickr
Which is nice on its own but not at all what I meant to do.
Really what I want is the second picture, but without cutting off the feet.
So...my question, for pretty straight on, squarish portraits like these, are you using front drop and keeping everything parallel? Am I on the basic right track with this? Should I just drop the camera lower?
Thanks
Paul
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