If you’re someone who admires the human body and wants to commit to portrait photography, then Canon 1300D is your best friend. It is one of the most accessible and most comfortable cameras to work with. With its light body and user-friendly functionality, you will be able to curate the most stunning portraits of anyone you plan on photographing. It has excellent manual and automatic functions that will make your life incredibly comfortable and will allow you to focus on the story you want to tell rather than technical details.
The 1300D comes with a compelling CMOS optical sensor that shoots at 18 megapixels, a sensor that will allow you to capture your portraits in incredible detail and vivid colors. This camera also has a fantastic DIGIC 4+ imaging sensor that will allow you to finetune your photographs to perfection and nothing less. With such a system, you will be able to comfortably capture beautiful portraits and expand your creativity into unexplored territories in the field of portrait photography.
The camera comes with a unique autofocus system that works on a predictive Artificial intelligence servo mode. This mode allows you to use the AF/AE to capture candid images, add creative overlays, and do much more in terms of spontaneous photography. It will enable you to use the camera as quickly as you want, without the image being distorted or blurred out. So, the 1300D has many interesting functions that can help you improve your portrait photography immensely. Now let’s look at some of the ways how it can do so.
Here are 5 tips on using the Canon 1300D for portrait photography.
Use Overexposure
Using portrait photography as an art form, you can use several creative elements to enhance your images. One of these elements is the use of overexposure. Exposure is essentially the amount of light you want to let into your mirror, which translates into a brightened image. Overexposure then is the excess of light that you let into your image to accentuate the highlights of the image and turn it into an elusive and abstract product. This turns an ordinary photo into something curious and exciting to look at.
For example, if you’re capturing a portrait of a woman from up close, and you only frame her face and hair into the image, an overexposed version of the image would make it much more interesting to look at. You will have to turn the ISO levels low and the shutter speed high, all of which you can access through a camera’s manual mode. This way, you will end up with an image that perhaps only shows half of her face, and the other half is dissolved in the light that encapsulates the larger picture. You will be left with remnants of the woman, a hologram that you present to the world, which you could frame a story for.
With the Canon 1300D, you will get an ISO range of 100-12800, which is an incredible amount to have as a beginner or a professional. You will also have access to 63 exposure metering zones so that you’re able to use the ISO to overexpose any particular zone/part of the image you want to. This way, you get lots of room to play around with overexposure and lighting.
Experiment With Natural Light
For portraits, it is essential to experiment with natural light. Natural light can be found everywhere. The sun is your most significant source. However, it is the way you use it that makes all the difference. You could use the light to form reflections, or you could use direct midday sunlight to add creative gestures to your portrait. In fact, if you go into a forest or just under a tree, you could create interesting patterns on a picture through the light that shines from between the leaves and the branches.
For example, if you place your model under a large tree with sunlight hitting only her eyes and her left cheek, then you can create those areas of the portrait as the central focus. This way, you will have an exciting story to tell to your audiences. In fact, you will have accentuated certain features which could potentially resonate with so many of your viewers. Similarly, using a reflector to shine the residues of natural light onto a portrait is also a great idea to incorporate into your images. It will give your model a soft glow that could cover the face evenly or in any other way that you want to.
The Canon 1300D comes with an effective light sensitivity system. It has a built-in low light and daylight function that allows you to capture images in the lowest and brightest lighting situations. In fact, it can operate in the hottest of weather, maxing at 104 degrees Fahrenheit. So, you can take your camera outdoors and shoot wherever you want.
Don’t Place Your Model In The Center
Try to stray away from conventional modes of photography. Most portrait photography classes will tell you to ‘always place your model in the center.’ Still, modern-day creative elements completely reject this practice. For you to be creative, try to place the model in exciting positions or add the element of ‘hide and seek’ in the image. You can place the model far away, in the corner of the image, or even elusively hidden behind a translucent curtain. Since creativity has no boundaries, all of these images would count as portraits.
If you’re in a field, try to position your model in the far right corner at a distance looking sideways. This way, you can add a minimalist tone to your image, playing with lines and colors only. With your model looking sideways standing upright in line with the field at the intersection of the horizon and the ground, your image will become a portrait that is grand yet conservative. Similarly, you can use a contortionist to be your model and ask them to contort in different ways to add complexity to your portrait.
Since the Canon 1300D has 63 exposure metering zones, it becomes easier for you to place your model anywhere in the frame. It will capture a perfect image. With its eye-level pentamirror, the optical viewfinder on this camera is the best tool to help you with framing and adjusting your model’s location and positioning for the image.
Practice As Much As Possible
Practice is key to any task you take on. Photography, and especially portrait photography, demand lots of effort and practice for you to become able enough to understand specific nuances. Practicing does not merely entertain the act of taking images in the same position every day. Instead it allows you to observe patterns that evolve out of humans, their shapes and bodies, and how those patterns react to external stimuli. Similar to the study of psychology, through practice, you also learn to study the visual performativity of humans, i.e., your models.
It is only through practice that you will also understand the notions of juxtaposition and color balances. You will soon be able to gauge how much light produces how much movement in an image. Through everyday practice, you figure out your camera, your models, your settings, and the way all of these elements come together in different ways. You will be able to take much more informed and exciting portraits if you practice as much as possible.
The Canon 1300D can withstand any amounts of practice you wish to put it through. It can take hundreds of images on a single charge and operate correctly in below-freezing temperatures. With its easy to understand LCD screen, you can practice on it wherever you want. However, you want. You will always get great results if not the best at the start.
Take Candid Shots
Candid shots are every photographer’s dream. You will always hear someone admiring candid photos and wanting some of their own. However, it is also one of the most challenging kinds of photography to do. Taking candids requires multiple shots, often in burst mode and full focus, so that the image becomes blurry. Since the subject (model) will always be moving, you will have to figure out how to translate that movement into your image without making it look displeasing to the audience.
Taking candid shots is, however, the most desired and the most aesthetically pleasing kinds of photography. Candids are admired for their liveliness and their spontaneity. Since most people become immediately aware of their bodies when being shot formally, candids allow for that informality to seep in and take over. This informality creates the ‘realness’ that most people look for in candids, and it is your job to provide that as beautifully as possible.
Taking candids on the Canon 1300D is super easy. The camera comes with a 1/4000 sec shutter speed and 9 autofocus points. It is very convenient for you to take sudden shots because they will always turn out aesthetically pleasing. You can also use the predictive AI autofocus to gauge where and when to focus on the optimal image. Thus, you can do a lot with your camera, so go out there and start shooting the portraits you’ve always wanted to shoot.
