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Summary: Great for family photos. Learn about taking photos of people with the Canon EOS 40D Digital SLR camera in this free Canon photography lesson.
Ryan Vaughn is a photo enthusiast who has used his expertise for professional wedding portraits and business promotion. He has used Canon's 20D and 30D models as well as the latest...read more
"OK, we're talking about the basic shooting modes here, and now we're moving on to portrait mode with the 40D. To set the camera to portrait mode, what you're going to do is, take this mode dial here, on the left side of the back side of the camera, and I'm just going to spin it, from fully automatic mode to portrait mode. And portrait mode just has this little icon of a woman's face to represent portraits. And when you're in this mode, the camera will automatically help to compensate with aperture. It will try to give you the largest aperture setting, in order to make the background blur out a lot, and it will help to make your subject or your portrait individual stand out from the background. When you're taking portraits, it's a really good idea to make the background as far away from the subject, as possible, in order to make them stick out from the background. But, this mode will help to soften the skin tones on your subject. And if you have a telephoto lens, that will also help to blur the background, as much as possible."
eHow Article: Canon EOS 40D: Portrait Mode
Comments
vanate said
on 2/26/2009 Portrait mode also softens the flesh tones and hair slightly more then auto, this helps with reducing blemishes. When using a zoom lens you would zoom in all the way making sure that you are composing your subject from the waist up, though you can compose it how you would like. When you are at the telephoto end it narrows the depth of field even more, and separates the subject from the background.