Lens and settings for portrait session

elmerglue

Two older family friends want me to take some portrait photos of their family during Thanksgiving. I have a 35mm lens and a 18-55mm kit lens. Which should I use, and should I use aperture or portrait settings on them? They know I am new at this, but I want to do my best so any advice would be great!

Jcasperson

Use your 35mm. You will get a lot sharper images than what your kit lens will give you. I use manual on every shot I take, but if you haven't mastered manual yet then use aperture (A). The trick I use is put the aperture number at how many people are in the shot. So 1 person put it at a 2 or lower. Two people, put it at a 2 to a 3 and so forth. Use singe-point AF as well and put the dot on the person's eyes. Hope this helps.

elmerglue

Thanks, would love to learn to use manual more but don't know enough yet to know what settings work best.