3 months, already wearing a tie!

[pab]

Had a few minutes to snap some photos, but as always my boy was gettin fussy...

So I only got about 25 photos in before the face turned re lol


I am starting to take more photos of people and less landscapes. I am thinking about selling the 14-24mm for an 85mm


This is burbaby


Steelers fan. A little out of focus, but my wife was pulling him up and down by his arms, it was more of an action shot to be honest.



Another try with the lion hat, his head finally fits into it!



And my wife jumped in for this one...

 

[bunny99123]

These are so cute! I love 2. Too bad you couldn't have gotten Dad holding his hands and in the pic or Mom in there somehow. The last one is too dark.

 

[pab]

Thank you !!

the last one happened because I had the camera set for the white backdrop, and then my wife grabbed him and moved out of the lights I am sure I could have played with the exposures more in PS but that bad on my part. Thanks for the C&C

 

[Judobreaker]

Cute, but they're OOF.
Try closing down your aperture. You're shooting at f/1.4 which is pretty much way too low for portraits at this distance.
For example, in the first pic your focus is on the right eye and the left eye is already slightly soft... It's usually nicer if they're both in focus.
Besides that a lens is never at its sharpest when the aperture is wide open, usually it's it its sharpest 2-4 stops down.

Basically both of these problems are solved by stopping down. Try shooting at f/5 for example, that's usually pretty decent for portraits.
If shutter speed is a problem just raise your ISO, it's only at 100 here... With your camera you can easily raise that a lot without introducing too much noise.

 

[pab]

Cute, but they're OOF.
Try closing down your aperture. You're shooting at f/1.4 which is pretty much way too low for portraits at this distance.
For example, in the first pic your focus is on the right eye and the left eye is already slightly soft... It's usually nicer if they're both in focus.
Besides that a lens is never at its sharpest when the aperture is wide open, usually it's it its sharpest 2-4 stops down.

Basically both of these problems are solved by stopping down. Try shooting at f/5 for example, that's usually pretty decent for portraits.
If shutter speed is a problem just raise your ISO, it's only at 100 here... With your camera you can easily raise that a lot without introducing too much noise.

This is the feedback I have been looking for. Thank you. I couldnt understand why it was so sharp and within a few inches so soft. As I do more practice shpts I will certainly take your advice. Its funny, you can read about the camera, learn the poses , create the lighting but if ypu dont fully understand the glass your farther behind that you think.

Thanks again!

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Judobreaker]

Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it after a few tries.

 

[jowensphoto]

These aren't bad at all, but closing up that aperture a bit will do wonders!

The last one is really sweet. If you're shooting RAW, adding a bit of fill light and a small exposure adjustment in ACR should make it pop.

 

[Judobreaker]

This JPG shot is good enough to fix in ACR. There's no extremes so there's no problems.
RAW probably would've given a slightly better result with less noise but seeing as there was little noise in the first place it's still not a lot of noise.
Good exposure in camera helps. ^^

 

[pab]

I should point out that on some of those photos above I use portraiture to soften and correct skin tones. I did not think about it at first, but it definitely softens up a lot more than I was expecting. I often layer it and fix the eyes and mouths but in this case the hair and edge lines looked pretty soft.

Here is the original RAW file.



Here is the edited with portraiture



The hair is a lot more blurry in the second one. making it look maybe a bit to sharp in the middle. Thoughts?

 

[jwbryson1]

At the risk of coming across as rude and pushy, with the equipment you are using I do not understand how your images are coming out poorly exposed and OOF. With a D600 and that fast glass, why don't you just crank up your ISO and stop down your lenses a bit to get good focus and exposure? You really need to learn how to use that expensive equipment. Sorry. Just my $0.02.

 

[baturn]

My personal opinion, fwiw. Babies are cute in their own right. They do not require accessorizing. Therefore, even tho it seems a bit dark, I like the last the best.

 

[pab]

At the risk of coming across as rude and pushy, with the equipment you are using I do not understand how your images are coming out poorly exposed and OOF. With a D600 and that fast glass, why don't you just crank up your ISO and stop down your lenses a bit to get good focus and exposure? You really need to learn how to use that expensive equipment. Sorry. Just my $0.02.

I can respect that. I am trying new stuff here. Im normally not a human shooter, and working under cheap continuous lights without a light meter probably is not the best approach either. Landscapes are what I prefer. My people photography is just starting and my knowledge for perfect lighting is just not there yet. Thanks for the C&C btw.

 

[jwbryson1]

At the risk of coming across as rude and pushy, with the equipment you are using I do not understand how your images are coming out poorly exposed and OOF. With a D600 and that fast glass, why don't you just crank up your ISO and stop down your lenses a bit to get good focus and exposure? You really need to learn how to use that expensive equipment. Sorry. Just my $0.02.

I can respect that. I am trying new stuff here. Im normally not a human shooter, and working under cheap continuous lights without a light meter probably is not the best approach either. Landscapes are what I prefer. My people photography is just starting and my knowledge for perfect lighting is just not there yet. Thanks for the C&C btw.

But you can put your D600 in manual mode and meter off their faces, so the exposure shouldn't be tricky. These are not difficult lighting situations. In terms of focus, if you want to shoot wide open (and I think we are all trying to convince you to not do that unnecessarily), then I find the best way to nail the focus is to switch from using all of the focus points to using a single focus point, and then using that focus point -- dial in directly between the eyes of the subject to get their face in good focus. That's assuming that they are facing you and the focus plane is parallel to the camera's sensor. If they are sideways to you and the camera's sensor, the front (near) or rear eye could be OOF depending on a number of factors including which lens you are using and your aperture.

I would also watch my backgrounds for portraits and make sure that they are pleasing and not harsh or jumbled messes. In the last image of your wife/child, you are shooting directly at them but over your wife's right shoulder is an open window with light pouring through. If you are using matrix or evaluative metering and no flash or reflective boards, then their faces are going to be underexposed as you see in that shot. If you can't get the open window out of the scene, then you should either use spot meting off their faces or use fill flash or a reflector to get some light on their faces.

Hope that helps. Keep shooting. Cute kid. :mrgreen:

 

[pab]

At the risk of coming across as rude and pushy, with the equipment you are using I do not understand how your images are coming out poorly exposed and OOF. With a D600 and that fast glass, why don't you just crank up your ISO and stop down your lenses a bit to get good focus and exposure? You really need to learn how to use that expensive equipment. Sorry. Just my $0.02.

I can respect that. I am trying new stuff here. Im normally not a human shooter, and working under cheap continuous lights without a light meter probably is not the best approach either. Landscapes are what I prefer. My people photography is just starting and my knowledge for perfect lighting is just not there yet. Thanks for the C&C btw.

But you can put your D600 in manual mode and meter off their faces, so the exposure shouldn't be tricky. These are not difficult lighting situations. In terms of focus, if you want to shoot wide open (and I think we are all trying to convince you to not do that unnecessarily), then I find the best way to nail the focus is to switch from using all of the focus points to using a single focus point, and then using that focus point -- dial in directly between the eyes of the subject to get their face in good focus. That's assuming that they are facing you and the focus plane is parallel to the camera's sensor. If they are sideways to you and the camera's sensor, the front (near) or rear eye could be OOF depending on a number of factors including which lens you are using and your aperture.

I would also watch my backgrounds for portraits and make sure that they are pleasing and not harsh or jumbled messes. In the last image of your wife/child, you are shooting directly at them but over your wife's right shoulder is an open window with light pouring through. If you are using matrix or evaluative metering and no flash or reflective boards, then their faces are going to be underexposed as you see in that shot. If you can't get the open window out of the scene, then you should either use spot meting off their faces or use fill flash or a reflector to get some light on their faces.

Hope that helps. Keep shooting. Cute kid. :mrgreen:

Lots of good info there. I did say though in the earlier posts I think that my wife grabbed the baby and as she picked him up he had a cute little smile. I couldnt pass it up so I just turned towards here and snapped.

 

[frommrstomommy]

The updated version of your wife and baby looks much better! This makes me excited for the d600 I recently ordered.