Portraits two different ways compared.

Both images taken aboard the cruise ship.  50 mm prime lens used.  No flash was used.
Left: 50 mm f/1.4 ISO 400 indoors.  Right:  50 mm f/14 ISO100 outdoors.

My goal for these photos was to use my APS-C body and 50 mm f/1.4 prime lens to do some portraits of Kathryn.  Both images were taken with the same equipment, but the camera settings were somewhat different.  I shoot most of my stuff in manual exposure mode and so had full control over all the main tenants of exposure.

The shutter speeds were nearly identical (1/80 vs 1/100).  Outside, the wind was playing havoc with her hair while there was no such issue indoors.  Outdoors also had less even light than indoors.  You can see the shadows on the right are harsher than the shadows on the left.  Clearly shooting in a more controlled location has an impact.

The low f/1.4 aperture allowed the background to be blurred for the photo on the left while the much smaller f/14 aperture allowed the distant background to be in focus.  In the original photo, you can see much more of the background in both photos with the entire Lionsgate bridge being visible as well as the large hanging illuminated globe.  

The higher ISO used in the left image did not produce significant noise.  There should be less noise on the right photo, but the foreground was a bit softer as my point of focus was beyond Kathryn.  You can see what I mean in the image below - the small brown, fuzzy dog on her shirt.  The softness of the right image is mild and wouldn't affect the quality of the shot unless significant cropping or enlarging was done.

Fuzzy dog from Kathryn's shirt.  Left:  indoors.  Right:  outdoors.

I often use flash to fill outdoor photos.  It would have been a better shot as it would have added more colour and contrast to the foreground and filled in some of the shadows that we discussed earlier.  The flash would need to be reduced in power so as not to overexpose the subject.  I use flash indoors when needed, but with good lighting and an f/1.4 lens, it is rarely needed.  You can also increase ISO significantly if you are using a kit lens like the 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 as, at f/5.6, you would need an ISO of 6400 to get the same shot.  That would definitely show significant noise.  Plus the background would be sharper.

Anyways, I found it interesting to compare these photos.  I hope you got something out of this.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com