1st practice natural light/outdoor portrait

RedWylder · Apr 10, 2011

I am practicing on a friend on doing natural light photography. Here's some of the better ones. The light was pretty harsh when taken directly into the sun. I don't have lightroom currently (my trial ran out) so these are completely unedited. Please help me work on my skills. What can I do to improve these?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Thanks!

RedWylder · Apr 10, 2011

Bump? lol anyone? Can I assume by the lack of response that I am a master photographer and nothing needs to be improved? :lol:

rateeg · Apr 10, 2011

i think all of em are out of focus.
and add a little bit of contrast coz it all looks flat.
just my 2 cents

mrpink · Apr 10, 2011

Wow, you really picked pretty much the most difficult situation to "practice" with. Bright sun, snow, child.... Those elements are working hard against you in these photos.

Compositionally, 1, 2, and 4 are good. I like the fact that you got low, this is very important when photographing small children. The others really don't work for me.

Lighting. I know you were going for natural light, but in this case, you NEED some sort of a fill. Be it flash or reflector, you need something casting light on the face of your subject, especially with the super bright snowy background.

Keep at it.

p!nK

mrpink · Apr 10, 2011

rateeg said:
i think all of em are out of focus.
and add a little bit of contrast coz it all looks flat.
just my 2 cents

Focus appears soft, probably due to underexposure.

p!nK

RedWylder · Apr 10, 2011

I agree that editing will help but that's not an option as I have no editing software right now. As for the focus issue that is something I can work on. I'm having troubles getting a nice clear focus on the eyes. Is there something I can do to make this easier?

RedWylder · Apr 10, 2011

mrpink said:
Wow, you really picked pretty much the most difficult situation to "practice" with. Bright sun, snow, child.... Those elements are working hard against you in these photos.

Compositionally, 1, 2, and 4 are good. I like the fact that you got low, this is very important when photographing small children. The others really don't work for me.

Lighting. I know you were going for natural light, but in this case, you NEED some sort of a fill. Be it flash or reflector, you need something casting light on the face of your subject, especially with the super bright snowy background.

Keep at it.

p!nK

LOL I can't say I have much of an option as far as the snow goes. I live in Alaska and therefore must compete with snowy conditions. As for the child, well I'll take what I can get! As for the bright sun...I will try again on a cloudier day and hope it's not too cold. Anyways, thanks for the feedback. I realize that the conditions were tough but I've got to learn to deal with it yea? So, I WAS thinking a flash would have helped so that's on my list of things to try. My biggest issue seems to be getting focus on the eyes. I'd dearly like to know how others make sure this happens when using a wide open aperture.

Edsport · Apr 11, 2011

If you did no editing these then i think your focus is dead on. I sharpened one of the photos and it looks good to me...

ababysean · Apr 11, 2011

I agree, you really need to get something to size and sharpen for the web.....

Where were your settings?

download GIMP. it is free. then learn a little and then get photoshop elements, I think it is like 99 dollars at best buy....

Big Mike · Apr 11, 2011

I also think that the focus looks OK, they just need a bit of sharpening.

They are on the lower side of contrast, but I don't mind that too much, except #2, that one could use more contrast. With the white background, too much contrast can look pretty weird.
I do think that some of them are underexposed to one degree or another. All that white snow will trick the meter, causing under exposure...so you need to add exposure (with exposure settings, not in post).

Also, most of your compositions are fairly centred. The boy's head is just about on the vertical centre line in all the shots, in some cases, this leaves a bunch of empty space above him. If nothing else, at least try to use the rule of thirds when you can.

vtf · Apr 11, 2011

Wow, shutter at 3200. The 50mm is best between f4 to f6. At wide open you will have the hardest time getting both eyes in focus.
Take it down to f4 and slow your shutter to 500 or so.
Meter for the snow/sunny day and use flash or refector as stated above.
Your camera should've came with an edting program, if not download Gimp.

RedWylder · Apr 11, 2011

Thanks everyone! I'll try some of the things ya'll mentioned and I'll see about editing with Gimp. I agree that the compositions could be more thought out but it's tricky when the kid is moving around constantly! LOL! It's all I could do to keep from chopping limbs off! I'm sure I'll get better at this with more practice though. I was hoping a bit of post-croppage (word?-probably not) would help where I fell short the shoot. I'll see what I can do with them in Gimp.