In order to setup your camera for a regular portrait, what I recommend using is just like any other picture or about any other picture. I would recommend using the program mode and I know that there is portrait mode in the camera but I like the program mode because the portion mode does limit you with a few settings that I do like having control over.

So I will turn the camera on and I will show you what I mean. First lets press the function button to access the function menu and at the top you see I have control over my ISO and this is very good because it depends on the lighting situation I mean need to increase that to 400 if it’s a very, very low light restaurant for example or down to 50. If it’s a nice bright day outside and I'm taking a picture of someone outdoors.

This is something that the portion mode does not give you control over. So I'm going to zoom this is a nice broad daylight and I'm just going to use my left navigation button to back onto 50. Lets go down to white balance. The white balance is currently set to daylight and that great because I'm assuming we are taking a picture outdoors. However, if you are indoors of if your lighting condition is different then just use the right or left navigation buttons to scroll around. And we have to see what results in the best color with tha lighting condition so I'm going to go to daylight continue going down I drive setup just fine I don’t want any kind of effect.

Now here is my flash compensation and I do intend I'm using the flash and it depends on how far away my subject is I may want to increase this is the subject is faraway or decrease it if the subject is close by. The reason is because if my subject is far away and I want to get rid of any kind of shadow cast from the sun that I may need to increase the power of the flash however. If the subject is close, I don’t want the flash to be overpowering and make my subject look very pale in one-dimensional.

So just use the left or right navigation buttons again to move a little green dash at the bottom to indicate what flash power level you are interested in. Lets go down one more to our metering mode. By default the metering mode is set to evaluative this is okay and if you forget about it that’s fine however, if you do want something a little different. Since this is a portrait and what is most important in a portrait is the persons face I like to use either center width average or even spot sometimes and this again is something that is not available when you're using the portrait mode.

So just press the right navigation button to get to center width average or spot meter, I'm just going to go a new spot meter to show you what's that like. And now I will just press the function button to escape the function menu. Now because I choose spot you can see inside my focusing square are two little brackets and that is exactly where the camera is going to look when it judges the exposure for the picture, so that’s fine. I don’t need to do anything I'm just making you aware of that.

Lastly the flash, press the up navigation button this also the flash button to scroll through the different flash options. And you want the flash on, if we’re going to use the flash or the flash off if you want to avoid using the flash generally don’t use the auto flash because I don’t want to guess what the camera is going to do, I want to either tell the camera to use the flash or not use the flash. So in this case I want to use the flash because I want to illuminate shadows and the person face. So I'm going to choose to turn the flash on.

Finally, press the shutter button halfway first. And this through for just about any picture go ahead and focus on your subject. I usually focus on the eyes focus on your subject like that I just press the button halfway keep the button held halfway and then slowly recompose adjust the image like that, because I don’t necessarily want the eyes in the center of the frame. So once the picture is recompose I can then press the shutter button of the rest of the way to take the picture.