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Portraits on S3IS Anonymous
Okay, I'll try to make it clear...

I have a S3IS, I wanted to make shots that are portrait-like, and what does that mean? that kind of picture, taken with a normal, or medium-tele, that with that focal length combined with a big aperture, gives me the person focused in the middle and blurred background

The thing is, for me to be able to do that, I'll have to stick with macro or tele, considering my s3is, I know it's fairly normal to go far away from the subject when you want this kind of pictures, but I've seen lots of candid shots that are portrait-like, I believe it's medium tele or normal (something around 70mm on 35mm sensor) and a big aperture...

I want to take this kind of shots in a non controlled manner, what should I buy? Canon says they have a "tele converter" and the canon 500d close-up lens that can be attached on the s3is...
should I go for one of these or should I just save money and buy a DSLR with the lens I want?
Thanks in advance.
>> Anonymous
All a teleconverter does is extend the range of your lens. It doesn't make it a better quality lens or anything.

Your S3IS more than encompasses all the focal lengths normally used for portraiture with its 36-432 equivalent lens, and then some. If I'm not mistaken, usually only fashion photographers will ever use lengths longer than that in portraiture.

A suggestion: Know your equipment. Shoot test shots from a tripod of an object at a fixed distance at different focal lengths, note how far into the zoom it is and the image number. Look at the EXIF data and construct a table, so you can choose something similar to all the typical portaiture lengths: 75mm, 90mm, 105mm, etc.

Don't note down just 4x or 2x or any of that imprecise stuff, something like "when the camera says 2x plus five taps (and you'll have to be constant or this is useless) to the zoom control, the lens is at xmm."

I did this with my stepped superzoom point and shoot, and it really comes in handy to get the creative control needed. It also helps with this candid portraiture: if you can remember, say, "2x zoom plus one little tap to the control gets me as close as this camera will get to 75mm," and then use it like a 75mm prime, it works wonders for doing that. Also, observe the optical properties of the lens at different focal lengths.

It takes maybe an hour of work to do the medium telephoto lengths that are useful. At the wide and the far telephoto end, I don't think this is nearly as useful. I know how to get my camera to 42mm, because I like that focal length a lot and it's easy to get to on mine, but otherwise I didn't bother.

If I had thought of doing all this when I was using the S3IS, I'd pass it along to you, but it wasn't until after my S3IS got stolen and I moved onto a different model that I thought of doing all this.
>> Anonymous
>>61525
First of all, thanks for replying
I see you have a very good point, I thought about making that "table", but the best camera I had so far was s3is, my focal length is attached to my zoom, I don't exactly know if in other lenses is the same thing...
I'll put that table up, and maybe post it somewhere...

lemme ask one more thing...
is there any means of having the portrait effect, without using zoom? I mean can I achieve the effect without the need of going further away from the subject?
example, I'm in some public event shooting, lots of people passing by in a convention or something, and then I want to have a "portrait" full body, with my s3is so far I have two options, I can shoot it wide and blur later in ps, which it would ruin the perspective, or go 5 meters away from the subject, scream for the people passing by not to get in the way etc...

is there a way? any of the converters I mentioned before can do something about this?
>> Anonymous
>>61535
>my focal length is attached to my zoom, I don't exactly know if in other lenses is the same thing...
Well, see, that's the reason for the table. Zooms on point and shoot cameras are stepped, which means that instead of being one fluid motion between focal lengths, it makes very minute "steps" between each. Once one figures out how to work with those steps, it becomes much easier to control focal length than just looking at a heavily rounded "3x zoom," when it's really "3.2x zoom," which would be a 115.2mm equivalent on a camera that is 36mm on the wide end. But when you think, "3x zoom plus one tap on the zoom control," it's easier. Also, I don't remember if this was the case or not with the S3IS, but if one is really observant, it's often possible to feel some (but not all) of the steps, at least on my camera.

As far as your situation, there's not much you can do, and the teleconvertors would just make it worse by making you have to stand farther away and make more people move. But working at medium telephoto lengths will get you a telephoto effect while letting you stand pretty close- 75mm lens are popular among documentary photographers for a reason.

As far as having shallow depth of field- that's very hard to do with a superzoom. All other things being equal, the smaller the sensor, the larger the depth of field. Superzooms have small sensors- that's why they can have such a tiny lens that works the same a 432mm one on a 35mm film camera. It's a tradeoff: Small size and ability to easily prefocus versus ease of getting small depth of field affects. Just set your aperture all the way open and count on that.

Oh, and something you might want to think about- the S3IS decreases its maximum aperture as it goes into the zoom. You might get better results if you set the lens to the very last point where it can get f/2.8. That might be the best fix for what you're looking for.
>> Anonymous
>>61540
And actually I just thought of something. If it's really worth the money for the teleconverter, you might be able to screw it on, zoom all the way out, have the lens at f/2.8 and the field of view of 36mm x whatever the teleconverter does. I don't know if this would work, though: I never looked into the teleconverter.
>> Anonymous
Hay, if you do get a teleconverter, don't forget to tell the camera it's attached. It's under the main menu; the option is converter. I believe it turns up the IS since it's needed more at larger zooms.