It’s worth remembering that the humble, ubiquitous and often divisive these days ‘selfie’ was borne from the more elegant, respective art of the self-portrait…
Grinning closeups aside (and I do think there’s a fun place for these all the same!) if you are interested in creating pictures of yourself and want to take them yourself it really couldn’t be easier! One of the reasons I got hooked on the Pen was its brilliant remote control…
Olympus users will know how handy the OI Share app is which allows you to use your phone as a remote. Set up the self-timer and you can give yourself time to pose, pop your phone somewhere else and trigger the snapping of 10 photos in a row with a couple of seconds in between.
For this picture I was interested in capturing the sunspot that appears just above our bed at around 5pm. It doesn’t last long so I had to be fairly quick!
I set up my camera on my tripod (I use a small travel one because I hate how cumbersome tripods generally are – more often than not I will balance my camera on the closest surface!
Connecting my phone to camera (and going into the app and selecting Remote Control) I was able to position and see myself. Tapping the screen to focus before pressing the shoot button.
With this kind of light, fairly intense, the light & shadow play can differ quite a lot so while my camera shot 10 pictures in a row that was not in my control, and it was interesting to see the results. Both the top photo and the one below were taken in the same sequence of 10 photos! I will add in a video on how to do this this week or see my IGTV where explain this too!
With self-portraits I find the key is to take loads and experiment with angles and positions. Light on the face can be the most glowing thing, so make sure that is happening.
I shot shot this on the Olympus Pen E-PL9 with a 17mm lens (my Aperture open to f1.8 for this photo!)
I also have an Olympus cameras & lenses to share with you – use STYLO20 for 20% off at check out on Olympus.co.uk – do give me a shout if you are having trouble deciding on what you need, either in the comments below or DM me on Instagram!
Hi! I bought the epl-8 last year with the 25mm lens which I use for portraits, close ups and flat lays of my work. I want to be able to use my camera for travel; cities, landscapes, environment etc. Do you think this lens is still good for that or should I look for a wide angle? I would like to be able to use one lens for outside shots (ie buildings) but also for those more inside/close shots.
Thanks!
Hi! Yes, lots of travel photographers use the 25mm as it’s so versatile! I use the 17mm personally as I find its slightly wider angle work well for me if I’m doing from above shots or outfit shots but I will sometimes need something tighter – so I usually have the 45mm portrait lens with me a a back up. Tbh the 25mm is the perfect compromise between the too! It really depends on what you want to shoot while travelling – for building fronts yes you might want a wider lens like the 17mm, but I also use the 17mm for detail shots as well as you can still get really nice depth of field with it! Hope that helps! Basically with prime lenses (ie. ones that don’t zoom, you’re never going to have one that fits every shot as it’s limited by its fixed nature. To cover all bases, you would generally need two! So depending on what type of things you are shooting this could be one wide, one portrait – eg 17mm and 45mm, or if you have the 25mm but find that quite tight you might want to go one step further than the 17mm to the 12mm which is super wide! I do love using this lens too! But I find the 17mm and 25mm produce better sharper image quality!
Ah that’s great! Thanks so much for that. (Yes the 25mm I have is the 4/3 so effectively similar to the 45/50mm)
So maybe the 17mm would be what I’m after.
Thanks so much again for the advice!