Beginner Tips for Shooting Portraits on 35mm Film

Jonathan, who started to get into the medium of film photography in 2015 says; “This list is for people just starting out to shoot film because when I first started I wished people made videos like this so I could learn”. So let’s get right into it, these are Jonathan’s 4 tips:

1.) Shoot with a narrow focal length. I recommend the 50mm and 85mm but if you wanna go wide I’d stick to 35mm, anything more may be a bit too wide IMO.

2.) Shoot in Aperture Priority. This will allow you to control the depth of field so you can go shallow “Background Blur” or have a more sharp image across the frame. Manual mode is also available to use but aperture priority is one less thing you have to worry about so you can focus all your drive and attention on your subject.

3.) Use lower speed films. 100 iso, 200 iso, 400 iso are all great films for portraits because they have much fine grain than higher ISO films. This will look a lot better on peoples skin.

4.) Experiment with different films during golden hour. Golden hour is the last hour of sunlight before the sun goes down and it will allow you to get some really beautiful effects and looks. Portrait photographers who shoot natural light will tell you golden hour is usually their favorite time to shoot.

If you’d like to see more from Jonathan you can find him on YouTube here, he is building a nice little collection of videos and if you are trying to learn more about the medium we recommend you head on over and check it out. You can also stay in touch with him via his website or Instagram.

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