PBase

I'm about to do a photo session with a family that wants a huge wall hanger, what settings should I put my camera on to be sure that the picture won't be distorted when enlarged so much. I've never printed this large of a picture before. I have a fujifilm S5000 DLSR. Thanks, Misty

I'd imagine this is going to depend greatly on what you have to work with. As a general rule, lowest ISO insures least noise, and stopping down to around f/8 or f/11 is the sharpest setting for lenses. This will probably require using a tripod, or most likely flash unless you're shooting outdoors under harsh conditions. Each way requires special techniques to soften shadows, or avoid red eye. Google can render some great information, as a start, you might like to see this article on informal portraiture:

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/10-ways-to-take-stunning-portraits/

There's other links on the site which should go through basics, such as using a flash and I'm sure others here will have suggestions too.
Good luck, and enjoy.

Edit: oh, forgot to mention... if shooting individuals, you'll probably want to isolate them from the background, so shooting with an open f/stop is required. Basically, like all type shots, you need to determine how to shoot each shot as you go. There's really no hard set rules, unless you're trying to duplicate stock portraiture?

Dang is spot on in his advice. There are general rules of thumb for portraits, but specific settings are impossible to determine without knowing the exact details of the shot.

Specifically related to the size issue, you're going to want to use the largest size available on your camera, which from my quick perusal appears to be 2816 x 2120 pixels. Note that while you don't need the same resolution for big prints as you do small ones because of the viewing distance, you may need to do some upsizing before printing if they want something really big, so you'll need to define "huge."

Julie Q.

Thanks for the advice.

As for "huge" I guess that could vary. I was told she wanted a very large portrait to hang or put on an easel (spelling?). Lets just go with an inbetween of 30x20.

This may provide some food for thought as well. Buried in the fine print is a way to find Pixels Per Inch which will help you determine what file size you will want to have ready for the printer based on final print size desired.

To all those that replied, I ordered a Canon 40D today. This should help me out a WHOLE lot!! Thanks everyone.