Z8 For Weddings / Headshots and Portraiture ?? Possible to keep a lot of Steve's settings for BIF while taking Portraits/headshots????

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What have people found to be the best settings for headshots/portraiture while possibly keeping as many of Steve's BIF settings intact ? Thanks in advance everyone for your help !
 
Hello, welcome to BCG
Using the shooting banks helps this switch over. Copy the main Photo and Custom Bank settings - usually A - into D or B, or c. Rename to your choice.
Then switch to this new set of banks and change some of the settings. This might entail using RAW+ jpg, or jpg only for humans.
There's a current thread on shooting banks with more links.
 
What have people found to be the best settings for headshots/portraiture while possibly keeping as many of Steve's BIF settings intact ? Thanks in advance everyone for your help !
There's no problem using the Z8 for portraiture work and really Steve's recommended wildlife configurations will work just fine.

Steve's settings as described in his setup video and ebook use a couple of AF concepts:

- You chose your primary AF Area Mode and set that depending on your subject matter.
- You use the Recall Shooting Function so that you can very quickly disable subject recognition when subject recognition and/or eye detect aren't working well for your subjects
- When subject detection and or eye detection is working well you have the option of switching to 3D AF by pressing and holding the Fn1 button
- If you need or want a very precise AF Area Mode that still supports subject/eye detection you program a custom 1x1 area group and program it to Fn2 so that with a quick press and hold of that function button you get a very precise AF Area and using that Recall Shooting Function you can disable subject/eye detect if it isn't working well in specific situations basically turning that 1x1 area into a standard Single Point AF Area that you can place where you want in the frame.

None of that is contradictory to shooting human portraits and head shots. You'd still chose whatever you think is the best starting point AF Area Mode for your subjects and the rest pretty much stays the same. The only real change you might make is switching from Animal subject/eye detect to People mode and that's easy to reach based on Steve's setup advice in the I-menu and just as easy to change back again when you go back to shooting wildlife.

That's the AF stuff and for Exposure Modes you could still stay in your preferred automatic or full manual exposure mode including Aperture Priority, or Manual with Auto ISO or full Manual if that works better for you.

One thing that might differ there is that if you'll shoot portraits and head shots with studio lighting or flashes and modifiers you'll need to delve into that a bit as Steve doesn't cover any of that for wildlife work.

If you want to maintain very different baseline settings (e.g. much lower shutter speeds for human portrait work) then the shooting banks as suggested above is a very good way to go.
 
Z8 is great for wildlife and other genres but it is SUPER GREAT for portraits and skin

There are a host of vids dropping from Nikon Europe on this. BUT in summary:
  1. Obviously drop to L3-5 not 20fps
  2. Choose PT in picture control - but drop mid-range Sharpening to -2.0; clarity to -1.00.
  3. Select Raw + JPG Fine* (reason later)
  4. Active D-lighting Auto - for the jpg
  5. Skin Softening Normal — applies only to jpg
  6. Portrait impression balance Mode 2 - may only apply to JPG — be very careful if changing colour tones
  7. Metering to Spot (Normal)
  8. Subject Detection to HUMANS
  9. Enable b4 matrix detection human faces — just in case you choose to switch to matrix metering
  10. e4 - to subject only
  11. e5 modelling flash on
  12. Consider 4x5 or 5x4 crop.
The rest depends on where you are shooting, how you are lighting your subject, what minor adjustments you need to make to "reduce" redness and odd colours

Obviously WB should be as accurate as you can -- we use SpyderChecker for every set up.

Don't just shoot in f/1.2 -- remember folk paid a lot for the dress, the set and and -- think f/5.6-f/8.0 FIRST -- then go creative.
 
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I shoot 100% in Raw and then batch process the sorted files using Photoshop actions to create JPGs at the size and resolution I want for the B&G. The D3 was fantastic for group pictures with its 5:4 crop so image could be sized for 8x10 prints automatically. Removing the 5:4 crop makes the Z8/Z9 cameras far less useful for wedding photography. I would be inclinded to use a D850 with its 5:4 mode and a 24-70mm lens for the group shots. It is important to minimize post processing time as much as possible.

The big question is how speedlights will work with the Z cameras. We lose IR AF assist with these cameras and the use of SC-29 IR flash cord. This has been invaluable with the usual dimly lit receptions and the dancing.
 
I shoot 100% in Raw and then batch process the sorted files using Photoshop actions to create JPGs at the size and resolution I want for the B&G. The D3 was fantastic for group pictures with its 5:4 crop so image could be sized for 8x10 prints automatically. Removing the 5:4 crop makes the Z8/Z9 cameras far less useful for wedding photography. I would be inclinded to use a D850 with its 5:4 mode and a 24-70mm lens for the group shots. It is important to minimize post processing time as much as possible.

The big question is how speedlights will work with the Z cameras. We lose IR AF assist with these cameras and the use of SC-29 IR flash cord. This has been invaluable with the usual dimly lit receptions and the dancing.
I have moved to only using Profoto with the Nikon varient of their triggers
 
What have people found to be the best settings for headshots/portraiture while possibly keeping as many of Steve's BIF settings intact ? Thanks in advance everyone for your help !
Go watch Hudson Henry’s videos. I don’t think Steve uses the banks much…but have banks setup similar to what Hudson does. Bank A is action and once that was setup with a comBo of Steve/Hudson/me settings I copied it to B and C and made slight changes there for Landscape/waterfall and Walking Around. Bank D currently unused. Unfortunately…the shooting mode isn’t remembered in the banks so I have to reset that and if I need to bracket for post I need to enable that as well…but it is what they gave us.
 

Unfortunately…the shooting mode isn’t remembered in the banks so I have to reset that and if I need to bracket for post I need to enable that as well…but it is what they gave us.
IMG_1475.jpeg
 
For portrait work a 24-120mm S lens on a 12MP or higher resolution camera is all that is needed. On a DSLR camera the 70-200mm is also a very good lens that is usable indoors or outside. For off camera flash the recycle time is important as often I have found the best image to be second or third shot in a series as people tend to relax after the first shot and flash.

I use Quantum Qflash and the Quantum FreeXwire transmitters that provide TTL at distance of more than 100 meters and the Quantum sender mounts on the hot shoe and has a dial to twist to adjust output from -3 EV to +3 EV in an instant. I can also use the Quantum with both Canon eTTL and Nikon iTTL cameras. The Quantum Qflash have bare bulbs that provide a unique light output in large rooms or when used outdoors and there are many modifiers including umbrella type softboxes that are very portable and can soften the light with a diffuser piece of cloth attached.
 
What have people found to be the best settings for headshots/portraiture while possibly keeping as many of Steve's BIF settings intact ? Thanks in advance everyone for your help !
use banks. I set B to wildlife/action and D for night skies I could set C to macro or portrait if I needed it.

Then I copy B, C, or D to A which is my working bank.
 
Z8 is great for wildlife and other genres but it is SUPER GREAT for portraits and skin

There are a host of vids dropping from Nikon Europe on this. BUT in summary:
  1. Obviously drop to L3-5 not 20fps
  2. Choose PT in picture control - but drop mid-range Sharpening to -2.0; clarity to -1.00.
  3. Select Raw + JPG Fine* (reason later)
  4. Active D-lighting Auto - for the jpg
  5. Skin Softening Normal — applies only to jpg
  6. Portrait impression balance Mode 2 - may only apply to JPG — be very careful if changing colour tones
  7. Metering to Spot (Normal)
  8. Subject Detection to HUMANS
  9. Enable b4 matrix detection human faces — just in case you choose to switch to matrix metering
  10. e4 - to subject only
  11. e5 modelling flash on
  12. Consider 4x5 or 5x4 crop.
The rest depends on where you are shooting, how you are lighting your subject, what minor adjustments you need to make to "reduce" redness and odd colours

Obviously WB should be as accurate as you can -- we use SpyderChecker for every set up.

Don't just shoot in f/1.2 -- remember folk paid a lot for the dress, the set and and -- think f/5.6-f/8.0 FIRST -- then go creative.
This is a great group of settings. The one thing I'd change is Active D Lighting to Low - not Auto. ADL at anything above Low also changes the exposure - something you would not want in the RAW file. It's okay for video or JPEG only - just not RAW+ JPEG.

Metering to Spot vs. just using matrix depends a bit on how you shoot. If you are good at getting faces properly exposed with Spot, it's a great choice, but you'll need to think through focus on anything other than a face because with it potentially comes an exposure change.

You might also think about how AF Area mode should change between horizontal and vertical images. I think of portrait sessions as being mainly vertical images, and that implies your AF Area in the upper portion of the frame. But when you change to a horizontal orientation, you might be shooting a group or a couple and that could mean Wide Small or Wide Large.
 
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