Is the problem in PP or in the exposure?

[jlykins]

Thats not necessarily true. The vast majority of pro-style portraiture is shot between F8-F16 for a deep DOF becuase you want the complete face or bust or body to be in focus with no apparent falling off of focus. What *is* important is lighting. More importantly, getting that flash or strobe OFF the camera. At F/2.8, it is easily possible to take a picture where the eyes are in focus, but the nose starts to blur. This becomes rediculously easy to do with faster lenses like F/1.8's and F/1.4's

Some of my best shots were at F-stop settings other than F/2.8 or wider. Fast lenses are nice, but I think that for me, understanding lighting and if shooting indoors, having the right off-camera flash equipment and knowing how to use it is more important.



In general, framing is a thing of personal taste. Some people like certain style frames but I fall into the class where I never use it for my shots and do not enjoy many kinds of frames at all unless I can encorporate it as part of the picture. Otherwise, they come out looking kinda amateur-ish, if you know what I mean? I let the picture talk and no need for frames for me. An example of what I mean:

IMHO, frames really start to interfre with the quality of a picture when it intrudes upon aspects of the picture's traits... like when the frame covers a hand, fingers, hair in a closely cropped picture or insists on covering an aspect of the picture that my eye was drawn and led to follow into... and abruptly interrupted.

If I could offer a little advice, if you have to have a frame, do not place them on the inside of a picture, but on the outside.

I never thought of the framing like that, it makes sense though. I have a lot to learn about portraits, and indoor lighting.

 

[Sandspur]

I've just read this entire discussion. Not I want to go back to your original question.

These are snapshots, not portraits. Apples and oranges. But I see no real problem with sharpness.

The first, and most troublesome, thing I see is that you used on-camera (I'm assuming built-in) flash. thus you start out with harsh frontal lighting and those shadows around the kids' heads. Bouncing or diffusing (or both) with a separate flash would have given you much better lighting.

And in PP, you should have - 1. cropped, then 2. adjusted Levels ... before anything else was done. Levels (or Curves, if you choose) should always be your first adjustment, because until you get the density right (especially the black point on the histogram), no other adjustment - color, brightness, contrast, hue, etc. - will work correctly.

Then there's the use of the Clone or Heal tool to take away blemishes on the little boy's face. It just takes practice.

I hope some of this may be helpful, and that my comments aren't too harsh.

 

[jlykins]

I've just read this entire discussion. Not I want to go back to your original question.

These are snapshots, not portraits. Apples and oranges. But I see no real problem with sharpness.

The first, and most troublesome, thing I see is that you used on-camera (I'm assuming built-in) flash. thus you start out with harsh frontal lighting and those shadows around the kids' heads. Bouncing or diffusing (or both) with a separate flash would have given you much better lighting.

And in PP, you should have - 1. cropped, then 2. adjusted Levels ... before anything else was done. Levels (or Curves, if you choose) should always be your first adjustment, because until you get the density right (especially the black point on the histogram), no other adjustment - color, brightness, contrast, hue, etc. - will work correctly.

Then there's the use of the Clone or Heal tool to take away blemishes on the little boy's face. It just takes practice.

I hope some of this may be helpful, and that my comments aren't too harsh.

Absolutely not! This is the kind of info that I wanted. I was using an external flash, but I wasn't bouncing it at all it was pointed right at them.

 

[nicfargo]

I think a big reason why your images don't look the way you want is your lighting. On camera flash can be very harsh on a subject. It also tends to wash a subject out and not give you beautifully saturated images. I'd either find a way to soften up that light quite a bit, or shoot with off camera lighting (check out Strobist.com). As far as shooting manual with your flash on your camera, as long as your camera has eTTL (i think it's iTTL for Nikon) then no worries. The flash will automatically figure for your manual settings on your camera. You only have to start worrying if you put your flash in manual as well.

 

[nicfargo]

do you have an external flash, or are you using the one built into your camera?

 

[jlykins]

do you have an external flash, or are you using the one built into your camera?

I have a sb600, but since these were just snapshots I didn't have time to adjust it to bounce. I just picked up the camera and snaped a shot real quick to get the picture before my daughter ran off. She doesn't like me taking her picture any more.(Probly since I take so many of her) My son was the same way as far as I just picked up the camera and took a shot.