family portrait - camera height

<p>i will be doing a family portrait this week. the composition is as follows: when adult sitting on an armchair, another adult standing behind him and 2 teenagers (16yrs old) nicely composed on the floor to wrap the compostion up. i am struggling as to what height i should have the camera at on the tripod.<br>

slightly above eye level of the seater person? or eye level of the person standing and therefore very slightly angled down?</p>

<p>thank you</p>

<p>There are exceptions to every rule, and some things are matters of taste, but <em>generally</em>, IMO, you don't want to take a portrait with the camera pointed up at the subject, but having it pointed down at the subject can produce a nice effect--it's a matter of perspective distortion / keystoning--a bigger head tends to look good, a bigger lower body not so good. Related to that, but distinct, is plain perspective, even if undistorted: by getting far enough back and/or using a wide enough lens, you can put the camera the height of the center of the group and keep it level, but it will be looking somewhat under the chin of the standing subject, which is not usually flattering. Also, for groups especially, I prefer the camera somewhat farther back (again for reasons of perspective distortion), and don't generally like the effects of wider-than-normal lenses. So my inclination, depending on how much space you have, and how wide angle a lens you are using, would be to put the camera at or just slightly below the height of the highest subject's eyes, and if necessary and/or desired, point it down slightly to frame everyone. Also, while I consider camera-to-subject distances of about 6 to 10 ft (1.8 to 3.0 m) to be ideal for traditional portraits, for groups, I think usually somewhat more is better, so I would start at least 10 ft away, and maybe somewhat more, if at all possible.</p>

<p>You don't say whether the teenagers will be standing, kneeling, sitting, or what, just "on the floor"--but I suspect that if they are sitting, they will be too low unless you get way back and use a comparatively long lens. Maybe have them stand, flanking the standing adult, or sit on stools or something so that their head heights are in between the sitting and standing adults' head heights?</p>

<p>thank you dave - very helpful.<br>

the teenagers are sitting right on the floor, leaning against the chair.<br>

i do have quite a lot of space, and will be using my 85mm lens.<br>

thank you - i will make sure i set it just below the standing person's eyes and angle it down<br>

slightly if needed. many thanks</p>

We shoot hundreds of portraits per year and from experience, don't use a tripod. A tripod is great for getting extremely detailed landscape shots, usually at longer distances, but not really needed for portraits.

Take your camera off the tripod and you can get any angle you want (use off camera flash if additional lighting is needed), as long as you have the camera focused (or on Auto Focus) and your camera is on an acceptable shutter speed (it can be pretty slow considering they will be sitting 100 or more is really safe) you will be better than fine and get lots of great new angles.