Portrait

[mikbone]

 

[smoke665]

Nice! The only niggle I have is that distracting patch of light camera left. Should be easy yo clone out

 

[mikbone]

 

[smoke665]

Much better.

 

[Jeff15]

A lovely portrait....

 

[mikbone]

First attempt at portraits...closely followed by second, any tips or ideas?

 

[smoke665]

second, any tips or ideas

I actually prefer the first one over this last one.

First off I'm not a big fan of landscape mode for portraits, especially if they don't fill the frame and you can't line up the the eyes on the top 1/3 line.

Second, I'm a stickler for eyes. I want "both" eyes so sharp you can count the lashes. A wise man once told me if the eyes are sharp everything else will fall in place. Being cognizant of your DOF is important, especially if the eyes are not on an equal focal plane. I shoot in studio mostly so my preferred aperture will fall in the f/5.6 to f/8. Outside with ambient I'll go to a 200 mm @ f/2.8 and back up on distance to gain enough DOF for the face, while still giving me a soft background.

Third, on lighting I put my key about 45 degress off camera centerline, slightly above the forehead angled down at about 45 degrees. That puts the highlight in the top quadrant of the pupil. This will light the eye socket and and the area under the eye. I typically use a three light set, key, fill, and kicker. One light shots are tricky, they can be done with reflectors, but for me it's easier to control ratios with lights. Typically the difference between the bright side and shadow side on a low key would be around 1:4 vs 1:2 on your second shot. Using a kicker gives you separation between the subject and background while adding dimensional definition to the subject.

 

[jeffashman]

I really like the second image of your first attempt, nicely done. Nice focus on they eye on the second attempt, it works.

 

[mikbone]

gone a bit mad with the processing