Create Beautiful Portraits With One Lens and Simple Light

Crafting beautiful portraits with a simple camera and lighting setup is possible, and limiting our gear choices can lead to even more creative results.

In my latest YouTube video, I demonstrate how I use natural light, strobe, and continuous light to create portraits. Instead of focusing on a ton of gear, I use simple setups, starting with just a window, and then show how I can use one Westcott FJ100 M hot shoe flash and a Joel Grimes Beauty Dish, and later one Westcott L120-B continuous light with the same modifier, to create varied results.

All of the images in the tutorial are taken with a Fujifilm X-T5 and Viltrox 56mm f/1.2 lens. By limiting myself to one lens (in this case, an 84mm full frame equivalent), I am forced to move around to get different angles and crops. Often I like to limit myself to one lens in this way because I find that I tend to be more creative than I might be with multiple lenses to choose from. Not only does a single lens tend to make me more thoughtful about how I shoot, but it helps me to avoid overthinking about which lenses I should use because I have only one choice!

This video is intended to help anyone who takes portraits and is looking for ways to improve. At the end of the video, my model and I head outside to capture some more photos, again using natural light and some scaffolding to help diffuse it. I hope you enjoy the video.