1st day with my Camera C&C

Smitzel269 · Jul 11, 2011

This is just one shot I got out of the day and I thought it was the best. It's my 4th Portrait picture ever on a DSLR lol.
I don't plan on being a portrait photographer, I actually don't even know what I want to do, I will mostly be taking pictures for fun.

One thing that I mainly noticed about this is that it's really noisy. I'm pretty sure that it's because the ISO was up as far as it could go (I was playing with the ISO a few shots back and forgot to turn it back). Don't mind the watermark, I was just explaining what a watermark was to my mother and didn't remove it. How is it for my first day with my Canon Rebel T3i? This was taken with the Kit Lens.

oldmacman · Jul 11, 2011

There is too much wasted space on both sides of the subject with a lot of distracting information. If you include backgrounds. it's nice to have them less focused so the subject stands out against the softness of the out of focus blur. Use the surroundings to your benefit. The lines of the bench could be used to lead to the subject. If she sat at the other end of the bench, this would be achieved and then that space on the left is used compositionally rather than unconsidered space. If you are shooting portrait, you should get used to portrait orientation. Play with landscape when you have a handle on composition and want to integrate related elements.

The subject is nicely exposed, but competes with a blown out sky. It looks like you have used a fill flash, so your shutter speed can be dialled up to better expose the sky and it won't affect the exposure on the figure.

Keep playing and having fun.
Cheers

tirediron · Jul 11, 2011

^^ Excellent points!

Smitzel269 · Jul 11, 2011

Thanks guys. I don't know really what I'm doing because if I change one thing it will make the picture completely dark or too light. It's pretty confusing but I'm sure I will pick it up eventually.