What is the Best Aperture for Portraits?
Last Updated: February 14th, 2020
You’ve probably heard it a dozen times now – camera settings are subjective, and there is no definitive “one size fits all” setting that will work for every photographer. This is definitely true – maybe even doubly so when dealing with a topic like your camera’s aperture setting – but we have a well defined opinion on this after having shot hundreds of portraits ourselves.
The best aperture ranges by portrait type:
- Solo portraits: f/2 – f/2.8
- Couples portraits: f/2 – f/3.2
- Small Group portraits: f/4
- Large group portraits: f/8+
Explaining Our Aperture Choices
Now that you have our preferred aperture choices – we want to spend some time talking about why we consider these to be the best apertures for portraits.
The Best Aperture for Solo Portraits
Our choice: f/2 – f/2.8
Portraits taken of an individual person are very easy from an aperture setting point of view. In all honesty, you could set the aperture anywhere from f/1 to f/64 and end up with a good looking picture.
Your choice of aperture for solo portraits like a headshot or candid portraiture outside is going to be dictated by your artistic preference and gear limitations as some lenses may only start at f/4.
Based on our experience, we find the range of f/2 – f/2.8 to be the sweet spot for portraits.
We like wide apertures for portraits to help separate the person from the background. It’s one of the defining features of a good and professional portrait that makes photography different on a more advanced camera than taking pictures with an iPhone or a cheap point-and-shoot camera.
In addition, being able to drop down to a low f-stop is great on a technical level because it allows more light to reach the camera sensor, thus allowing for more clarity in the image – even in low light environments.
The Best Aperture for Couple’s Portraits
Our choice: f/2 – f/3.2
We photograph couples almost every weekend, so our experience with couple’s portrait photography has been particularly extensive.
Our choice of aperture tends to be pretty similar to how we shoot portraits of an individual – for much the same reasons.
It’s worth adding that, with couple’s photography, from some angles it will cause one person to be a little less in focus – and this is an intentional choice much of the time for us. There is a softness that is pretty romantic (in our opinion) that this approach offers.
From time to time, we will increase our f-stop to counteract this – if we want both people in focus. Because of the proximity the people are from one another, normally a step up to f/3.2 is sufficient to get the extra clarity we want in these photos.
Please note…this rule applies to any pairing of two people. It doesn’t just have to be romantic couples!
The Best Aperture for Small Group Portraits
Our choice: f/4
We consider small group portraits to consist of between 3 – 7 people. This would cover most immediate family portraits and other photo groupings like those of friends at a wedding reception.
For this type of shot, f/4 is our go to aperture because it allows us to get everyone in focus, even if they aren’t completely on the same viewing plane. At f/4, you are also going to be better able to get an image in focus as compared to a wider aperture, which is more difficult.
The Best Aperture for Large Group Portraits
Our choice: f/8+
Large group portraits are those taken of groups with 7+ people. This might include extended family portraits and other big group pairings like this bridal party shot featured above.
We use a much more narrow aperture, so we can get everyone in focus. With larger numbers of people involved, this often leads to much more staggering of people to get them all comfortably in the frame. It’s this layering of people that make us want a higher f-stop to be sure it’s not just the front row of people that actually end up in focus.
Conclusion
Picking the best aperture for portraits is easy.
While your artistic style may lead you to using a different f-stop, our suggestions are supported by our personal experience taking a whole lot of portraits both personally and professionally.
We hope that with this insight into getting the right aperture camera settings, you can have an easier time getting the portraits you want. Let us know in the comments if this helps you!
