More with Less*-Challenge Status: undecided

JustJazzie

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I wanted to see what I could pull off with as little as possible.

So, I closed my curtains down to about 14 inches and threw up a chiffon panel to diffuse the light, stuck a 48 inch black pop up reflector on a stand as my background and set my 50mm to 1.8-2.8 in attempt to diffuse the wrinkles on the background.

Self portraits wide open are a nightmare to focus, I knew this before I started. I did it anyways- I'm not sure what this action says about mental status. :giggle: It's likely that I don't want to know the answer to this.

I will probably try this exercise again sometime with a longer lens, on a subject I can properly direct, frame and focus, and perhaps get some better results.

(updated with an attempt at skin corrections after @Donde's remarks)

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I'm not an expert and they will hopefully chime in soon but to me the light on your face is far too bright. I would like to see your face in the color of your chest in first and third. You are quite the winsome subject.
 
I'm not an expert and they will hopefully chime in soon but to me the light on your face is far too bright. I would like to see your face in the color of your chest in first and third. You are quite the winsome subject.

I'm glad you posted, wonderful observations!

I get dinged for skin brightness in every portrait that I post. :giggle:

I like my skin tones bright, I suppose. However, now that you mention is, there IS far too great of a difference between my face and chest. Perhaps I can find a happy medium with some dodge and burn.

Im also burning down the background to try and hide those darn wrinkles.

Thank you for your thoughts!
 
I'm bias so I can't really comment on this thread! LOL It's beautiful. :D BTW, you may want to look into getting the Nikon WU-1a adapter. It would allow you to see and focus your camera through your smart phone. I have something similar for my D600.
 
I'm bias so I can't really comment on this thread! LOL It's beautiful. :D BTW, you may want to look into getting the Nikon WU-1a adapter. It would allow you to see and focus your camera through your smart phone. I have something similar for my D600.

Thanks for chiming in. :1219: It is always a pleasure to hear from you.

Actually I have that! I used it for a few shots, but gave up. The relay on it is super slow, the self timer is only 2 seconds, (which isn't enough to stash the phone away) and then it only takes one shot at a time. Not to mention it drains the battery on both my camera and phone like no other!

My selfie method has always been to set the self timer to take 9 shots in a row, and pray one of them turns out half way decent. :giggle: Maybe one day I will get the hang of the adapter, but today was not that day.
 
Oh I see!! I use it in conjunction with a remote trigger. I view and focus the camera through my phone, then lock the focus there and just trigger it with a separate trigger. So I wasn't even aware that there's a lag through the app. Yeah, that's a bit of a pain.
 
I'm an amateur, with just enough knowledge to make me dangerous, so most of this is personal taste. Which may or may not be the same as yours, but "variety is what makes the world go round".

The last one in the set I think is the better of the set. The lighting is more flattering , and the skin tone overall is more even. The lighting ratio, is better, just enough shadows to sculpt the nose, and define the cheeks, but not hide those features. Though admittedly the full profile pose is probably more flattering the difference in light/shadow is just a tad to much. If you had used a white fill card to bring some light back in the shadows, this might have been the best of the bunch.

Short lighting, offside, reverse key, whatever term you use, I'm not a big fan of it for the female face. Even in a low key I would rather see the facial features fade into the shadows, it just looks odd to me. I'm also not a fan of higher lighting ratios on a pretty face. As said earlier my personal taste is that shadows should define the structure, not hide it. To me a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 max is the ideal.

I also suspect that you might be confusing "skin brightness" with saturation and overexposing slightly to compensate. If you look at Vtec44's wonderful images you'll notice a "common trait, all of his females and some of the men, have the same slightly desaturated perfectly even tone with a pearlescent quality. Over time he has developed an "ideal" skin tone (for him, and obviously the clients he serves), and uses tone mapping to insure that consistency, from face to arm, to neck. If you look closely though, even in the lightest highlight of the cheeks, it's never blown, just a good solid exposure.

Me on the other hand (forever the amateur) tend to lean more toward saturation. I'll swing to the rosy red cheeks every time, and have to force myself to back off. Like I said "variety", wouldn't it be a boring world without?

As to the self portrait, most of the time I use the timer also. I have a remote, that will work every time without fail until I step in front of the camera. I can push the button repeatedly with nothing until the frustration clouds my face with anger - then it works! :allteeth:
 
These are all very pleasant pictures. You look good, and your hair looks very nice! My favorite is probably the last shot, due to the pose and clothing and the way it's super-slimming, and the lace top or dress looks very nice too. The forehead brightness seems a tiny bit too much though. Self-portraiture is often very challenging. You did well on these.
 
@Vtec44 - you inspired me to do a little more research on my adapter. I found out if I turn my phone to airplane mode before connecting it to the nikon, the connection is MUCH smoother and responsive without a time lag. I will definitely be playing with it some more!

@smoke665 Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I agree with so much of what you said! The last one in the set was taken when I came to the same conclusion as you and changed my camera angle. I wanted to change it more drastically, but the darn wall was in my way. :giggle: I am very interested in this "tone mapping" you speak of that @Vtec44 uses, I haven't ever heard of it, and I do swoon over his skin tones! However, in regards to my original thoughts, I do actually mean skin brightness. It is my incredibly lazy way of skin smoothing "in camera" If you were to go back and open all my portrait threads, you would be hard pressed to find one where you didn't read "your skin is overexposed!' Perhaps its my monitor...I don't print enough to know for sure, and my images look HORRIBLE on my laptop. Worst. Screen. EVER.

As for the lighting, I agree it isn't the most flattering I could have gone with. My shower curtain/soft-box does a much better job of providing a flattering, feminine, buttery-soft light wrap. With that in mind though, what I wanted to find out in this excersize was what results I could get with little-to-no extra equipment- which is why I left out using any fill in this case.

@Derrel, I always look forward to your comments! It seems we have a consensus on the last photo being the best, and with that- a verdict to my self imposed challenge. I think, in a pinch, I could easily go with this setup, making sure I have a longer lens to smooth out the bothersome wrinkles- and being sure I get the angle of the single light source correct. Thank you for your kind words and assessment on these.
 
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I am very interested in this "tone mapping" you speak of

Sorry between an aging mind and google auto correct, things come out wrong sometimes. It should have read tone "matching". Rather than start over on each image in PS you can use a sample to adjust the skin tones to the sample.
 
@Vtec44 - you inspired me to do a little more research on my adapter. I found out if I turn my phone to airplane mode before connecting it to the nikon, the connection is MUCH smoother and responsive without a time lag. I will definitely be playing with it some more!

You can also switch to camera mode instead of live view mode. That makes it a bit faster too. I always use an external trigger though.
 
I really can't speak of the technicalities - I have done two portraits in my life. But as a viewer, I enjoy seeing your work.

I think this is a nice set, but I can't decide whether the first or third is my favorite. I generally don't care for the close cropping and narrow DoF in the second, but that's my opinion. I noted on your Flickr page that I also prefer the color to the B&W.
 
My only itch is that i feel the light source is too low.

Instead of keeping the bottom 14 inches open just turn the shade so the whole thing is open and cover the bottom half with black cloth and the diffuser material up top.

This way would also let you have more control over the light because you can twist the shades closed or direct the light up and down.

I would have liked to see a backdrop light to give you some separation as well

Just to be clear when you say shades do you mean like these?
faux-wood-blinds.jpg
 
I really can't speak of the technicalities - I have done two portraits in my life. But as a viewer, I enjoy seeing your work.

I think this is a nice set, but I can't decide whether the first or third is my favorite. I generally don't care for the close cropping and narrow DoF in the second, but that's my opinion. I noted on your Flickr page that I also prefer the color to the B&W.
Thank you, SnowBear! I definitely don't swing towards the style of the second either in general. In hindsight, I was hoping to pull just a few from this 20 minuet exercise and these were really the only three that were even half way decent. I scrapped the project after I realized there was no way to smooth the black reflector with the 50mm I was using. The evolution was the second, Actually being the first test shot. the first somewhere in the middle, and the last was when I finally got a better angle of light.

Thanks for checking out the monochrome on flickr. I almost posted them in B&W here. Glad to hear I made the right choice!

Its always great to hear from you. Thank you for taking the time to share the feedback!
:HUGS:
My only itch is that i feel the light source is too low.

Instead of keeping the bottom 14 inches open just turn the shade so the whole thing is open and cover the bottom half with black cloth and the diffuser material up top.

This way would also let you have more control over the light because you can twist the shades closed or direct the light up and down.

I would have liked to see a backdrop light to give you some separation as well

Just to be clear when you say shades do you mean like these?
View attachment 149353

Yes ! I noticed that too and was trying to figure out why.

Did I say shades? I meant curtains, vertically closed to make a strip light of sorts, 14 inches wide x say 3.5 feet tall or so, and I was right up against it so it *should* have illuminated me pretty evenly top to bottom. I was wondering if it was the overhang on the roof blocking the light? Or maybe the reflective hard flooring giving the illusion of a lower light source? I am not quite sure, but the catchlights don't lie! Something was amiss.
 
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Two more things . . . love that slightly devilish smile and that's a pretty blouse / dress.
 

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