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How To Take The Ultimate Selfie

Mar 12, 2014 by Laya Gerlock 14 Comments

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Time magazine just named Makati City, Philippines as The Selfie Capital of the world. And as a proud Filipino I have done my shares of selfie in the interweb.

Selfie Capital PH

Selfies from friend’s in facebook

There are tons of selfies in the internet taken using a smartphone, but those do not compare to the greate selfies I have seen was on Flickr, where people take the time to light or setup their shots and use “real cameras” to take their selfies, just to name one that I always follow is Dustin Diaz’s flickr.

There are a lot of ways to do a selfie using your dslr, so to each his own, this is a quick tutorial on how I do my selfies. [editor note: Laya’s Selphies are some of the best I’ve ever seen so you may wanna hit the jump see what he has to offer]1. To start off you need to use a tripod. (or lay your camera down somewhere stable)

Tripod

2. I think the hardest part in doing selfies is the focusing, because you are doing this alone (which I normally do), I place a lightstand which is my easy to manage, always available stand-in. I place the light stand where I will be standing and adjust the height of the lightstand as tall as my eyes. I prefocus on the silver part of the lightstand and switch my camera to manual focus. so It does not re-focus. Mark the floor or use an already existing mark to know where the light stand is even after you move it away.

Focus on the silver part of the tripod

3. If you have a wireless trigger, you just move to where the lightstand (stand-in) was, then move it somewhere or fold it so it won’t be seen in the camera then click the trigger.

Move to place

4. If you don’t have a trigger, set your camera to timer mode (15-20sec), and do the same technique. Another option is to use the built in intervalometer (Nikon) or Magic Lanteren Intervalometer (Canon)

Remove tripod

5. After that, it’s just a matter of adjusting your light.

Final Setup

Some Examples of selfies:

Sample 1 – For the love of hotpockets

For the love of hotpockets

For the love of hotpockets

Hotpockets Setup

Hotpockets Setup

Sample 2 – Reading on top of our roof

Reading on top of our roof

Reading on top of our roof

Setup shot roof

setup shot for Reading on top of our roof

Sample 3 -Huwaatt??!

Huwaatt??!

Huwaatt??!

Setup shot for huwat

Setup shot for huwat

Sample 4 – HighSpeed Selfie

HighSpeed Selfie

HighSpeed Selfie

Setup Shot for highspeed for highspeed selfie

Setup Shot for highspeed for highspeed selfie

Sample 5 – Masked

masked

Setup Shot

Setup Shot

I hope we are not going to regret this, but… Please share your selphies in the comments below :)

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

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Related posts:

Up your selfie game with the ultimate automated selfie stick featuring beauty light, hair fans, and more The “Ultimate Lens Hood” is… the ultimate lens hood? Watch: How to build the ultimate selfie stick The Ultimate Selfie – time to practice during this down time period

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: home studio, lighting, portraiture, selfies

Laya Gerlock: from diyphotography.net

About Laya Gerlock

Laya Gerlock is a Portrait and Product photographer based in the Philippines. His passion is teaching and sharing his knowledge in Photograpy and has been doing this for 6 years. You can follow his work on his web page, follow him on Flickr and if you happen to come by Cubao, Quezon City (To Manila, Philippines) he gives a great workshop!

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