I switched from Nikon to Canon a couple years ago. Bought RF lenses, where before I had regular 1.8 prime lenses. I splurged, and one of the lenses I bought is the 85mm 1.2 which is hands down one of the sharpest lenses I’ve ever seen, and at 1.2 gives a sort of medium format look to portraits. I’ll have this as long as I’m on the RF system.

I turn True Tone off. Everything else I leave as is (brightness about 60%). If you’re going to be printing a lot, you’ll want to calibrate. But if almost or all of your work is digital, the truth is most people will be using a phone to view your work. Androids are all over the maps with their color (previous android owner for years), but iPhones are relatively the same. And the iPhone is extremely close to a MacBook. The last two years, I’ve been making sure it looks good on the MacBook, and because of that it looks great on the majority of people’s phones.

Seems like a ton of these guys are landscape photographers, so I’ll throw in someone different. Josh Ball still has a pretty small following (under 5k) but as someone who shoots often with models (I’m terrible at making vids though), it’s hard to find a model photographer on YT who doesn’t outright serve up the models in lewd poses in their thumbnails or vids while still creating sexy lifestyle photos. He also does all of the BTS himself, which isn’t easy at all. And throughout most of the shoots, he describes what he’s doing and why he’s doing it so you can learn from him as well.

Can someone who’s pretty experienced with shooting headshots do it with one speed light? Yeah, absolutely. But if you’re asking this question in here, I’m thinking you’re not very experienced. Especially for corporate work. These are people who generally aren’t happy with how they look - #1 question is always ‘you’re going to make me look thin, right?’ - and they aren’t models, so they have no idea how to pose. So it’s up to you to infuse confidence in them that you know what you’re doing, and to impress them. When I do corporate work, I use a minimum of 3 lights, and a reflector. I’m tethered to a MacBook so they can see the photos and choose their favorites. It’s important to get it as close to finished as possible right in the camera, because you don’t want to have to edit a ton of photos just to make them presentable, especially if they’re only choosing one. Do you have a backdrop? Or do they want them taken in an office? Outdoors? If anything, I’d give the job to a more experienced headshot photographer and tag along to see how it’s done.

I have an R5, and the manual focus is phenomenal on there. Weirdly though, I think I’ve only ever had to use it once. I was shooting with a model, and had hung plexiglass in front of her that had been hit with water from a spray bottle to simulate a wet window. The eye AF kept going straight to her, and even the point focus just went straight past the water droplets. Using manual focus, I could see exactly when the droplets were in focus because they were outlined bright red, making the shot easy as possible to capture. Slightly NSFW, here’s the final image.

I recently had this situation with a client, they requested things that I told them would result in poor photos, they acknowledged that and then weren’t happy with the photos. Wanted another shoot, but with a discount. Politely, I said no. I said we’ll do it my way, and if they’re not happy, they don’t have to pay. They agreed to that, we did the second shoot, and they were happy as could be. Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself. Also, just as an addition, if you’re doing more couples shoots, I highly recommend this vid on couples posing. It really elevated my work.