Change camera settings for outdoor portrait

Our series of  pre-shot checklists continues with a look at some  of the best camera  settings for outdoor portrait photography. While  variable lighting  conditions can present challenges, you can still set  up your camera in  advance… here's how. Even  though you can't predict the  exact lighting conditions that you'll be  working in when you plan a  shoot outdoors, having some basic settings  pre-set on your camera will  help with your outdoor portrait shots.  

Things you can pre-set
For most outdoor portraits you'll find that ISO200 will give you   high-quality images, and still enable you to use a shutter speed fast   enough to avoid blur from camera shake or subject movement. Just like when you're taking window-lit portraits,   you should set your camera to aperture-priority mode as this will give   you complete control over the depth of field. Using a wide aperture  such  as f/2.8 will help to blur the background, while a narrower  aperture  such as f/8 will keep more of the scene sharp. For most  portraits  you will want to blur the background, so you can set the  aperture to  f/2.8 or f/4, although you may need to adjust this when you  are shooting  to give more or less depth of field. As long as  the subject isn't  likely to be moving around you should set the  focusing mode to  single-servo, and select the single-point area mode.  Then, all you need  to do on the day is position the focus point over  the face or eyes of  your subject. 

Settings to change on the day
If you position your subject to the left or right of your frame during your shoot, you may find that you can't select an AF point that corresponds to their position within the frame. In these situations you will need to either switch to manual focus,   or use focus lock. In AF-S focus mode, all you need to do to use focus   lock is position the subject so they 're in the selected focus point   area, then press the shutter release half-way until the focus indicator   appears in the viewfinder. Then, while still half-pressing the shutter   release, recompose your shot and fully press the shutter release to  take  your shot. You may also need to adjust the exposure,  depending on  the lighting conditions that you find yourself shooting  in. In darker  conditions you may need to increase the ISO to enable you  to set a  shutter speed fast enough to avoid camera shake, and blur  from subject  movement. You will also need to set some exposure  compensation if  there is a light or dark background: if the background  is much darker  than the subject you will need to set exposure  compensation to a  negative value, such as -1, to avoid the subject  being over-exposed,  while if it's brighter than the subject you should  use a positive value,  such as +1, or everything will come out dark.

Fill-in flash
Shooting in bright sunlight can produce harsh shadows on faces, so try   using flash to reduce them. The easiest way to do this is to set the   flash to TTL automatic exposure, which will adjust its power   automatically. Use exposure compensation to adjust the overall exposure. 

Typical camera settings for window-lit portraits

File format
RAW
Exposure mode
Aperture-priority
Aperture
f/4
ISO
200
Shutter speed
1/200 sec
Focus mode
Single servo
Drive mode
Single shot
White balance
Daylight