Window Light Portrait

One of my grandsons was sitting next to me in my office looking intently at photos on my computer monitor.  The moment was too good to miss so I grabbed a camera.

The diffused light was coming from a window with a white accordion blind, providing nice semi-soft directional light, perfect for portraits. You can see the window as a catch light in his eyes.

The light level was pretty low so I turned the ISO up to 1600 to get a workable shutter speed of 1/40 second. I metered the brighter area of his skin and added one stop of light to what the meter said (+1 exposure compensation) to keep the skin light in tone.

Depth of field was minimal (which I intended) at an aperture of f/5.0 so I focused on his right eye. Whenever the face is partly out of focus, it is important to focus on one of the eyes, usually the eye that is closest to the camera.

The background behind him is the out of focus pattern on the back of one of my desk chairs.

Photo Info: Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF24-105mm f/4L IS lens at 73mm. 1/40 sec, f/5.0, ISO 1600.

Links

Detailed information on portraits, lighting, metering, depth of field, metering, and exposure compensation are in Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies, my 5 star rated book at Amazon.com. You can learn more here and order it here.

The Best Book On Photographic Lighting

“How To” Recommendations: The Best Books on People Photography