Tip 1. Focus On The Eyes
Eye contact isn’t always desirable in a portrait photo, but sharp eyes definitely are. Manually select an AF point over one of your model’s eyes, or use the central focus point to lock focus on their eyes. Release the shutter button to half-press to keep that setting locked, then recompose your shot before taking the picture.
Tip 2. Using A Standard Or Telephoto Lens
For portraits, a standard lens or short telephoto lens is a better choice. The classic portrait focal lengths on a full-frame camera are 50mm and 85mm prime lenses, along with a 70-200mm zoom. These help compress features and give a more natural-looking result.
Tip 3. Using Window Light
You don’t need an expensive home studio lighting kit to take great portraits. A window and a reflector can help you achieve stunning natural light portraits without spending much at all.
Position your model at an angle to the window, and use a white or silver reflector to open up any shadows across their face. A silver reflector gives a crisper quality of light than a white one, though the effect won’t be quite as subtle.
Tip 4. High-Key Portraits
Deliberately overexposing a photo to create a “high-key” effect gives a light, delicate look that suits feminine portraits and pictures of children well. The trick is not to blow the highlights in-camera, but to brighten the shot afterwards in software such as Photoshop. Shooting RAW files gives you the most editing headroom, since you can pull far more detail from across the tonal range in RAW than you can from JPEGs.