Today morning, I went back to Lodi Garden once again. However this time around, I wasn’t there for architecture, low light or time-lapse photography. Instead, I went to Lodi Garden today to shoot outdoor portraits.
Srijan, Anuj and Vishal proved to be great models and I got some good shots from the shoot, which I am sharing below.
All the photographs were shot using Canon 60D, 55-250IS lens and 430- EX-II Speedlight. Even though Canon 55-250IS is my least favorite lens, it offered the compression and look I wanted in my shots, so I ended up using it for pretty much all the photos. For those interested in EXIF, it is intact in all the photos below.

Srijan Mitra

Anuj Varshney

Srijan Mitra

Anuj Varshney

Srijan Mitra

Anuj Varshney

Vishal Varshney
Mixing ambient light with flash was both challenging and fun, and even though I was shooting with a bare flash, I believe results came out quite good with fairly natural looking portraits. And this shoot proved to be quite a learning experience, which ought to translate into even better looking photos in the next shoot.
Once again, a big thanks to Srijan, Anuj, Vishal, Ronald, RK Bharat and Rajiv Solanki for turning up for this shoot.
9 Comments
YS why f/8 for portraits?
Though they looks nice…
Thanks Ankur.
1. To ensure there is enough depth of field to keep the subject in focus.
2. Canon 55-250IS is fairly soft wide open.
Any particular reason for not using the nifty-fifty?
It is too short of focal length to flatten the image. Telephoto works well for portraits, if you have room to work with.
Okay!
Never knew that.
Try shooting with 50 and longer focal length, and difference would be all too apparent :). Even with f8, bokeh is good in case of telephotos, while with the 50, you won’t get much bokeh.
In that case, what good is the 50mm then (apart from allowing us to use where a telephoto can’t be used?
1. Fast aperture.
2. Very less distortion.
3. Cheaper than just about any new lens you can buy.
4. Extremely inconspicuous, so great for in crowd candid shots.
50 1.4 and 50 1.2 are great and then there are primes from Carl Zeiss etc. which are superb optically and out resolve just about any zoom out there.
Plus everyone has a different taste in portraits, some like flatter images and some don’t.
Perfect !!
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