Author: Jeremy Lebled

Portrait Tips from a BCC Pro!

Jeremy Lebled

What is the key to great Backgrounds for Portraits?

Photo Courtesy of Jeremy Lebled

What is the key to great backgrounds for portraits you ask? Honestly its pretty simple! The key is “less is more” and to “keep it simple”. With Portraits you want to have as few distractions from the background as possible. When you have distractions and a bunch of clutter behind your subject it will take away from the photo rather than adding to it. To make a strong portrait you do not want to distract the viewer and take away the focus on your subject. So try placing your subject on a simple, uncluttered background from the start. If that is not possible. I would suggest to either remove as much as you can from the background. Or if you are outside try to position yourself and angle your camera in different angles so you do not get random people walking in the background and so forth. Another thing that helps when you are shooting around other people outside is to shoot with a telephoto/prime lens that has a fast aperture. That will help compress and completely blur out anyone or anything in the background. So lets recap! The key to great backgrounds is “less is more” and “keep it simple”. This will immensely help your chances of getting “the shot”. Which we all love getting! Keep shooting and stay safe.

Till next time..

All my best,

Jeremy Lebled – Bergen County Camera Specialist

Camera Tips from a BCC Pro: Couples Portraits

Jeremy Lebled

Have you been struggling posing Couples? Try this technique!

Couple posing and smiling
Photo courtesy of Jeremy Lebled

Have you been struggling posing couples? Try this technique! When you pose a couple. You should always tell them to get in nice and close to each other. But when doing this most of the time, they almost always never get close enough to look “close”. There is usually always a little gap in between them where her head is not fully resting on his shoulder. Or there is a gap when their heads should be touching and so forth. I am sure if you go and look through your photos of past shoots you can find a few photos where you wished they were closer together. Luckily I have a quick fix for those issues! Next time you are posing a couple. Take a photo after you tell them to “get closer, get closer” and they move just a few inches but you still see a gap. Then take your camera right over to them and show them the gap on the back of your LCD monitor. Once they see the gap and realize how big the gap actually is when they thought they were already super close. They will instantly get in real close to one another and it literally will makes the entire shot for you. I can’t tell you how many times I have done this over and over and it always works fantastic. Now go out and give it a try! Let us see your images! We would love to see.

Till next time…

All my best,

Jeremy Lebled – Bergen County Camera Specialist

Camera Tips from a BCC Pro: Outdoor Portraits

Jeremy Lebled

What time is best to shoot outside Portraits?

Photo provided by Jeremy Lebled

Many Portrait photographers chose to do their shoots early in the morning or late late afternoon for a few reasons. The first reason for shooting early, the light is just perfect! Getting up early to shoot in the morning. There isn’t as harsh of a light yet in the day. Compared to shooting closer to high noon or the early afternoon. Where the sun is higher in the sky and causes harsh unwanted shadows. You can get away with shooting during the day at that time as long as you are in a area with a lot of open shade. But ideally earlier in the morning is when you will get the best beautiful golden light. Secondly, the streets are usually completely empty. So there is little distraction for your model/subjects. You have a very small window of time before the streets or parks start to fill with foot traffic or regular traffic depending on where you are shooting. So make sure you get there early to scout out your location and be prepared! Another great time to shoot is closer to sundown. The lighting will once again be beautiful and golden. But the only thing to keep in mind is there will still most likely be a lot of people and potential traffic. So you will need to work quickly! Just to recap, the best time is the morning. Second best is later in the day towards sundown. But you can also get away with shooting during the day if you have to. Just make sure you find a nice area with shade. Be sure to have your early morning coffee ready, have some fun and take some beautiful images! Till next time..

All my best,

Jeremy Lebled – Sales Specialist at Bergen County Camera

Camera Tips from a BCC Pro!

Jeremy Lebled

Expensive Glass… It makes a HUGE Difference!

Featured above: Nikon 24-70mm 2.8 VR Lens

So does shelling out all of that money on a really good lens you have been debating about buying make that big of a difference compared to your kit lens? Positively it does! I remember back when I bought my first so called “big boy” lens. I was shooting with a kit lens for a couple years at the time. I wanted to start taking my photography more seriously. I noticed that my photos weren’t come out as crisp as I wanted. I just felt like it was lacking that extra umph! Something just wasn’t there. So I headed over to BCC (at the time I wasn’t a employee yet!) to talk to their knowledgeable staff. I ended up being shown a beautiful 24-70mm 2.8 lens. I almost fainted once I heard the price of how much it would cost me. But as soon as I took a couple shots with it. I realized right away that I would be devoting all my time to come up with a plan to save up the money to purchase it. And I’m glad I did!

Later on I would learn some of the main reasons why more expensive glass is better. Pro lenses are made with the highest quality glass available. Some of the things this helps with are contrast, sharpness, lens flare and color fringing. So you get the highest quality photograph possible. Which are all extremely important. They are quicker and more accurate with autofocusing. So you can nail your shots the first time when you take them. And lastly, they offer the fastest maximum apertures. Which means you can use lower ISO settings or shoot in lower lit situations easier. For those of you who shoot sports, dance recitals, school plays, action and kids running around this will help immensely. Shooting at a lower F-stop also makes it easier to blow out the background and get that rich, creamy “bokeh” effect that we all love. It really helps separate your subject from the background wonderfully.

I can’t stress it enough how that one purchase of that lens impacted my photography so greatly. It was one of the best things I have ever done. Yes I understand it is expensive. But a quality lens is an investment and as long as you take good care of it, it will be something you will have for a very long time and take many wonderful photographs with it. I promise you wont regret it! If you have any questions feel free to call our store at 201-473-2050 and anyone one of us would be more than happy to help.

Till next time..

All my best,

Jeremy Lebled- Sales Specialist at Bergen County Camera.