I got a decent camera recently and my family asked me to shoot

read the sticky

make sure there's enough light in the right place (i.e. not shining in their eyes or making unflattering shadows)

If you're out expose for them not the background. I'm guessing you're using a kit lens, so set you're aperture to 5.6 and keep it there then you will have the same exposure for all shots. I would put centre focusing on and focus for the eyes of you're subject always to stop the camera from choosing the background. You can go as low as 1/50th probably if you have steady enough hands. Maybe max of iso 400 to reduce noise. If you're shooting a single subject I.e close into the face then for the best bokeh possible zoom out to 55mm and 5.6f. If the background is distant enough you should get decent bokeh. I recommend getting a 35mm prime. If you're going to use a flash try to use it only for a fill in flash. (expose for background then subject infront using manual TTF mode)

Above all. Learn and have fun. Idk if any of that helps

0) See this as an opportunity to learn and grow

1) Consider getting the 50mm f/1.8. It's the cheapest lens you can buy and it will greatly improve your people photos. If you shoot it at 1.8 and place the focus point dead in someone's eye, you'll get normalfag-pleasing shots no matter what else you're doing wrong

2) Learn the basics of exposure on Youtube: The exposure triangle, how the camera meters, reading the hisotgram, and how to do exposure compensation.

3) Shoot people in shade . Avoid shooting people facing the sun. Try to compose your shots so that the background does not interfere with the subject, even if blurred (at the time, you won't be able to tell how stupid that branch growing out of your mother's head is, because you have a three-dimensional understanding of the scene, but the next day the picutre will look ridiculous) This won't get you great photos, but again, they're easy tricks with good return for a complete beginner
Look up the rule of thirds, shallow depth of field, and backlighting

Get the focus on the closest eye.

If you shoot inside, the light will probably not be good. First get the max aperture you can get with your lens, then use a low shutter speed (but don't go under 1/80 otherwise you will have a movement blur), and then increase your ISO (it doesn't if you have some grain on your photos, it's better than blur).

Again if your are inside, change the white balance to the type of light that is being used (ex: incandescent for the regular lightbulb). But that's not really a big deal, the picture will be good anyway, and you can easily edit that on computer.

Don't use the builtin flash, most of the time it's crap.

>>2989282
I'm going to assume you got the kit lens, you can use it so don't worry about new gear.
Use the long end 55mm to do single portraits, head and shoulders, use 35-24mm for group portraits but keep in mind to keep a minimum distance and set the zoom accordingly so you won't get much perspective distortion. 35mm will be good for whole body portraits too.
The main thing is to focus on the eyes, the eyes in focus means you got the portrait. Use the lowest ISO possible but keep the shutter speed at 1/[focal length], use the on-board flash if you need to. The hard shadows are still better than noisy family portraits.
Get someone to pose for you before to work out the settings. And have fun.