Today, we will teach you how to shoot your first professional portrait shot using a DSLR or Mirrorless camera. How to shoot portrait photography? Lens First lets start with the lens, for this tutorial I will use a 50mm f1.8. Nifty fifty is one of the cheapest portrait lens and if your just starting with photography this is a must have. I always carry a nifty fifty on my bag. You can also use an 85mm or any lens longer than 50mm. 35mm is good but its wider and if you dont know how to use the right distancing you might end up skewing the subject. So for cheaper and more general alternative, lets stick with 50mm, you can use either auto focus or manual focus lens. We're using the one with auto focus. Setup Next is dialing the right settings, look at the mode dial of your camera. For mirrorless, it is embedded in the menu system. Carefully turn it to A or aperture priority or Av for Canon. I checked my Sony mirrorless and it is in the Menu system, find the shooting mode and select A or aperture. Now there's a front dial wheel on your camera that controls the number of your chosen mode. On this case, we're controlling the aperture of the camera. Turn the dial to F2.0 or F2.8. Depending on how blur you want your background to be. I suggest F2.8 to make sure the face is sharp, coz the smaller the number the shallower the focus area. Light condition Next is lighting condition. in your first portrait shot, to make sure it will be a success, lets do it to place where there's enough light. You can do it outdoors or a room with enough light. Make sure that subjects face receives a good amount light isn't against the light. You can play with these composition later but today we're treating everyone like its their first time. Composition Next is your composition. There are gazillion ways to shoot portrait shots and you can incorporate foreground and background, lights for bokeh effect and even mirrors and body of water for reflection. This is where creativity will build and I will encourage you to think outside the box. Internet is also your friend so check out some great photos online. There are lots of creative stuff on Instagram so you can sign up to that platform and search for #portrait or #portraitshots On our first portrait we will use the rule of 2/3. so basically putting your subject around the 2/3 area of your composition. This is useful to show your subject and also gives the image enough area to show off the blurry background. Just a tip, if you can do this in an open area, the farther the background the greater the blur. Next is focus, since you have a non moving object, we will use single focus. To do this go to menu, focus, single area. Don't worry about the focus area, its too much to learn, we just use the normal area or whatever is currently defaulted on your camera. You will have a small dot on either your cameras piece or screen. Every time you half press the camera shutter, the camera will focus on the area where your dot is. So if your ready, drag the dot near the face and if possible focus on one of the eyes, half press and hold the shutter button to lock the subject area, while holding or half pressing the shutter recompose the scene and fully click the triger. Editing using JPEG file on your phone And lastly, this is your own taste. The editing. Adjust your photo accordingly but on your first try, go easy on it. We can use Lightroom or Snapseed for phones. There are sliders for everything, brightness, exposure, contrast, shadows, etc. Just go easy on the slider, a faulty editing is a faulty photo. You can destroy the image by applying incorrect editing. There's no rule for it as long as it looks good and presentable. I generally check for the shadows and blacks and make sure I show a little bit of darker areas or make it darker for dramatic effect. Its also nice to change the color a bit for a more stronger and professional look. Links to my other videos: Nikon D80 in 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KgVnunGtbU #NikonD80 Music: Background music were taken from Youtube Studio Audio Library. No copyright music. No attribution is required.