Best Portrait Cameras Under $1,000: Special Situations

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Best Portrait Cameras Under $1,000: Special Situations

Seven cameras, eight lenses compared, one stood out

Page 3: Specialty shooting scenarios

By Dave Pardue, William Brawley and Dave Etchells
Posted: 06/15/2018

We've now shown comparison examples in both normal outdoor light as well as typical lower light situations. But how about bright midday sun? While far from the best conditions in which to be shooting portraits, you may not have a choice depending on the wedding, graduation ceremony or whatever event you're attending. When it comes to isolating your subject from the background, the biggest issue we've seen (and this is especially true of budget cameras) is whether or not a camera model offers a sufficiently fast shutter speed. Many DSLRs offer mechanical shutter speeds up to 1/8000s, which can work, depending on the lens' aperture and the light level. Unfortunately, many entry-level DSLRs cap shutter speeds at just 1/4000s, putting you further at risk for overexposed images when using a prime lens wide open in bright sun. To get properly exposed shots, you're then forced to stop the lens down, sacrificing background separation potential.

However, a number of budget cameras, mostly mirrorless models, now provide an electronic shutter option that gives you faster shutter speeds than the mechanical shutter when needed. We'll take a closer look at that here, using a few of the competitors. Electronic shutter has two primary advantages for portrait scenarios. As just noted, a big advantage is the ability to allow for a super-fast shutter speed in bright light, so that you can still take advantage of a wide aperture lens and provide good subject-to-background isolation without over-exposing your image. Another significant advantage of electronic shutter is simply the ability to fire quietly, which can come in handy depending on your situation and circumstances.

Some of the camera models in this shootout have electronic shutter as an option, while others don't, so we took one of each and headed out on a bright Georgia day in May. As expected, the super-bright midday sun did dictate that we had to stop down the lens on the camera lacking an electronic shutter. This of course meant the camera couldn't achieve quite as much subject/background isolation as the one with the electronic shutter.

Shooting portraits in bright light with electronic shutter

Once again taking Gena, Lois and Lisa out for the excusrion, in addition to both our resident Gibson SG and Fender Telecaster guitars for another common background reference, this shoot took place late-morning in full spring sun.

Olympus E-M10 III + 45mm f/1.8

1/4000s | f/2.2 | ISO 200 | 90mm eq.

Mechanical stop-down: In bright light such as on this day and with a max limit of a 1/4000s shutter speed, you're often not able to keep the aperture wide open. If you force it to remain wide open in manual mode, you'll simply over-expose your image and blow out the highlights. Stopping down to f/2.2 did the trick here, but brighter days would force even more of a stop-down and therefore less compelling bokeh and separation.

Panasonic GX850 + 42.5mm f/1.7

1/8000s | f/1.7 | ISO 200 | 85mm eq.

Faster shutter: Allowing the electronic shutter to kick in allows for a 1/8000s shutter speed here, which does the trick by allowing us to remain at f/1.7, which is better at producing the coveted subject-to-background isolation that's prevalent in most good portrait situations, especially in social environments.

Bokeh comparison - The benefit of electronic shutter in bright light

Olympus E-M10 III (slightly stopped down to f/2.2)

Panasonic GX850 (wide open at f/1.7)

Subtle bokeh improvement: With similar focal lengths and sensor sizes between these two combinations, the difference in having to stop down to f/2.2 is certainly not huge, but it is still worth consideration. The other thing to remember is that in a social situation you really don't want to have to think about such things, and having the option to set the shutter to "auto" on the GX850 allows for just that. There can also be even brighter days or situations than this one, in which you'd need to stop down even further for a proper exposure. Adding an electronic shutter option really shouldn't cost that much more, so here's hoping more manufacturers include this option on their budget lines.

Of course, there are disadvantages to using electronic shutter as well, most notably when your subjects are in motion as this can often result in a "jello effect," or rolling shutter effect, in which subjects become distorted due to the way the data is read off the sensor line-by-line while in electronic shutter mode. But for most static portrait work this will rarely if ever be an issue.

Using "Portrait Mode" with an iPhone 8 Plus

As they say, the "best camera is the one you have with you," and for many folks, the iPhone or other smartphone in your pocket will work in a pinch to capture that group shot or portrait. However, if you're wanting that classic portrait look, with nice subject isolation and a blurred background, smartphones are at a major disadvantage. The phone's image sensor is super-tiny compared to the other cameras in this shootout, and while the iPhone 8 Plus, in this case, has a 56mm-eq. telephoto camera with an f/2.8 aperture, the sensor is way too small to create that pleasing portrait look all by itself. This is why Apple and other smartphone makers have started creating "Portrait Mode" features that use their dual cameras and/or a combination of fancy computational trickery to simulate the shallow depth of field and blurry backgrounds created by cameras with larger sensors and wide-aperture lenses.

But... how well do such features work? Let's take a closer look.

Standard "Telephoto" Lens Camera Shot: 1/60s | f/2.8 | ISO 160 | 56mm eq. | +1 EV

Here we have a standard iPhone 8 Plus photo, captured with the "telephoto" lens. Despite the 56mm-eq. telephoto lens and f/2.8 aperture, you can see just how deep the depth of field is with this camera. The subject is clearly in focus, as is almost everything else in the background, and so there's really no good separation to speak of.

Portrait Mode Camera Shot: 1/60s | f/2.8 | ISO 160 | 56mm eq. | +0.74 EV

In this example, we've shot the same scene using the iPhone 8 Plus' Portrait Mode. As you can see, the background is much more blurred compared to the previous photo. While it's a much more pleasing result for that "portrait look," it's still not as blurred as you'd get with a camera with a larger sensor and lens with a brighter aperture. And as you'll see below, the effect isn't always perfect so there's always a risk when using it.

When looking at the whole scene, the Portrait Mode shot seems to do a decent job of simulating that shallow depth of field look, but as we saw back in our iPhone 8 Plus Field Test, the iPhone's Portrait Mode is far from foolproof. Because the phone is using computational methods to decide what should be blurred and what shouldn't, it's easy for it to get confused, blurring things that shouldn't be blurred and vice versa. The shot below shows clear examples of this problem, so be aware when using the mode that it does have obvious drawbacks.


iPhone 8 Plus standard mode	iPhone 8 Plus portrait mode
In this tight crop of an iPhone's normal camera shot versus a Portrait Mode image, you can see how the Portrait Mode has difficulty with finely-detailed edges, improperly applying a blurring effect (or not applying it) in some areas. It's also worth pointing out the somewhat "crunchy", digital-like detail from the iPhone's camera in general. Although in and of itself, the iPhone camera can capture a lot of detail, its tiny sensor just doesn't have the resolving power that we see from the larger-sensored cameras in this shootout.

For more information about the iPhone 8 Plus and its Portrait Mode, check out our iPhone 8+ Field Test. We also Field Tested the Google Pixel 2, which has its own Portrait Mode feature and likewise shows blurring issues similar to the iPhone.