Official Portrait of President Obama taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark II

By Robert • Jan. 15, 2009

Official Portrait of President Obama Six days ahead of the inauguration, CHANGE.GOV has released the new official portrait for President Barack Obama. It was taken by the newly-announced official White House photographer, Pete Souza. This is the first time that an official presidential portrait was taken with a digital camera. The camera used was none other than the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Souza told Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira on NBC’s Today Show that he took about four hours with his assistant (freelance photographer Andy Cutraro) to set-up lights and be ready for the shot. Then, the President-elect then gave him about five minutes for the traditional formal sitting on Tuesday.

After the session, Souza said that he and his assistant showed the shots to Obama “on the back of my digital camera.” They narrowed the selection down to a couple of shots that they liked, Souza said, and the photographer made the final choice. Souza said he showed his selection to Obama’s new White House press secretary Robert Gibbs before releasing it.

The EXIF data are intact and can easily be extracted from the image (see below).

Image EXIF

Make/Model – Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Software – Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
DateTime – 2009:01:13 19:35:18
Copyright – © 2008 Pete Souza
ExposureTime – 1/125 seconds
FNumber – 10.00
ExposureProgram – Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings – 100
DateTimeOriginal – 2009:01:13 17:38:39
ExposureBiasValue – 0.00
MeteringMode – Multi-segment
Flash – Not fired, compulsory flash mode
FocalLength – 105.00 mm
ColorSpace – Uncalibrated
ExifImageWidth – 1916
ExifImageHeight – 2608

While the EXIF does not give a specific color space, be aware that the high-resolution version posted on CHANGE.GOV has been saved in Adobe RGB.

On January 20 in post offices in the United States, on Navy ships and military bases in remote locations, and in American government buildings around the world, postmasters and soldiers and diplomats will be taking down the eight-year-old portrait of George W. Bush and hanging up the official portrait of the new president, Barack Obama.