The Sony Alpha 7R V is Sony Artisan and portrait photographer Miguel Quiles’ camera of choice for studio and portrait photography in general. “Being able to capture portraits with 61 megapixels with AI tracking that ensures that my work is sharp and in focus has been a gamechanger for my workflow,” he says. “It gives me time to execute some of the creative ideas that I have in my mind since the camera is carrying all of the technical stuff for me.”

In this video, Quiles takes you behind the scenes of a studio portrait shoot. Watch as he pairs the Sony Alpha 7R V with the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II to create portraits while sharing his tips along the way. “Having a ton of resolution with the camera and lens combo, like the one I used here, made this shoot a lot of fun. And hopefully you see why this combo is my go-to setup.”

Select Your Lens Based On The Face In Front Of You

Quiles chose to pair the camera with the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II because he says those longer focal lengths really help to flatter the features and the shape of the human face – something that you won’t typically get if you’re using a wider focal length. In this shoot he used the lens around 105mm all the way up to 126mm, but he says it always depends on the face that’s in front of the lens.

“A pro tip here,” Quiles explains, “you want to try out different focal lengths with different faces to find the one that flatters them the best. I’ve actually had people’s whose faces looked OK at the focal lengths that I used today, but they looked even better when I went up to 150mm, even as high as 175mm focal range. It all just depends on who’s in front of you.”

Try Using Narrow Apertures For Portrait Photography

He calls the Sony Alpha 7R V with the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II a lethal combination for portrait photography, but the secret sauce in his portrait work really comes from his camera settings. “In most portrait situations you may instinctively use whatever the widest aperture is on your lens. In this case, this one goes to f/2.8. But I ended up going in the opposite direction and I took these at f/13. Stopping this lens down allows me to get more of my subject’s face in sharp focus, and it gives my images a quality that is uncommon in most people’s portrait work.”

He continues, “As a general rule for me, if the tide in portrait photography has everyone going to the right, I try to find some creative ways to go in the opposite direction. And using those narrow apertures has always been an easy way to do that.”

Use Simple Lighting To Create Catchlights

Quiles’ lighting setup for the studio portrait shoot was fairly simple – a strobe inside of a beauty dish to carve out the subject’s facial features, with a silver reflector to fill in the shadows. “Having that reflector also created these gorgeous catchlights in her eyes that have always been a big part of my work.” He also had a second strobe behind him at a lower power that was firing into a white V-flat to bring up the shadows even more.

See more videos like this one on the Alpha Universe YouTube Channel.