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Cameras and Equipment

"If a photographer says he is not a voyeur, he is an idiot! I think he can't be much of a photographer. It has nothing to do with sex."  Helmut Newton, German Portrait and Fashion icon.

 "Do it big, do it first class, anything is possible."  Rebecca Blake, American artistic portrait photographer.

 "I always use the same lens for my Nikon, namely an 85mm. This is the one that allows me to capture what I see as closely as possible."  Jean-Francois Jonvelle, French Portrait and Fashion Photographer, 1943 - .

 
Cameras for Portraiture

 Amateur (and some professional) photographers spend a large percentage of their time evaluating what camera to buy. However, to obtain good portraits, almost any camera is suitable. Personally, I would rather have my portrait taken by a photographer with a Box Brownie who knew what they were doing than a photographer with a Hasselblad who didn't understand how light works. These days there is an enormous choice of camera types, makes and models. The main camera types are: 

*       Compacts (Point and Shoot) eg Olympus Mu

*       35mm SLR (Single Lens Reflex) eg Nikon F100

*       Digital Compact eg Canon Power Shot G5

*       Digital SLR eg Fuji S3

*       Medium Format eg Hasselblad


  Tip   These cameras vary enormously in their lens quality, degree of automation and of course price! They will all produce good portraits if used correctly. However, there are TWO features that will help you to obtain better portraits and only some cameras have that feature - manual control over aperture and a zoom lens!

If your camera is completely manual, or it has an aperture priority mode or a portrait mode than you have the feature that will enable you to control depth of field and obtain better portraits. If your camera has fixed settings (completely non-adjustable) or completely automatic then you will have very limited control of the appearance of the portrait.