A girl in Panama

The_Caper · Jul 7, 2007

Evening all:
I have posted a multitude of shots, most of them having little to no C&C from anyone.

I know most are quite bad myself but any bit of help on simple things like composition , DOF and Lighting would be great and help me drastically.

Here is a shot of a girl in the jungle village of Panama. Please don't hold back as I actually need more criticism than good as I am shooting a job in Sep 07. Again I find this 28-135 Lens very soft

Thanks all.

Sweetsomedays · Jul 7, 2007

I agree it's soft. Aside from that and her feet missing it looks good. I like the fact her hands are doing something and she's not looking at them...makes it interesting to me.

MrMatthieu · Jul 7, 2007

Sorry it does not look good at all:

- the girl is not on focus
- the b&W is too much grey, not enough contrast and light
- the compostion is not good, you shoot her from the top, better to try different angle and position before shooting

The_Caper · Jul 7, 2007

Mr. Matthieu:

Thank you for the critique. I believe the lens is the problem with the shot being out of focus. I am very dissapointed in this lens as it is aprox. 649.00 Canadian dollars.

I originally shot the photo in colour and I made the mistake of making it B&W Post shooting.

I will work on my composition over the next while as that will become important for shoots later on.

Thanks again.

Paul.

MrMatthieu · Jul 8, 2007

The carper, the lens is not the problem

You have a IS ( stabilized ) lens , that means you should never have picture out of focus !!! :mrgreen:

Check at what are the exifs of your shot, I guess too long exposure time, maybe 1/30, Or just you did nt make the focus properly on the face of the girl, but this lens is very good and can make very good shot

Mat

Nein-reis · Jul 8, 2007

I agree, I shot with that lens last week, and my images were super sharp! Was this taken on a tripod? if so make sure you have the IS turned off.

ANDS! · Jul 9, 2007

You're giving him composition and tripod tips for a shirtless girl in Panama - something tells me this isnt one of those "could you move your arm just a little to the left" photo situations.

The "picture" is fine, it does just needed to be more in focus. As for the contrast - you can play with that in PS.

And not all lenses are the same, even the same lens.

abraxas · Jul 9, 2007

I like it quite a bit. However, if you go back to Panama, in the same jungle, to the same village, and see the same girl, near the same building, do it over. -- Practice with the lense before hand though, just in case.

MrMatthieu · Jul 9, 2007

ANDS! said:
You're giving him composition and tripod tips for a shirtless girl in Panama - something tells me this isnt one of those "could you move your arm just a little to the left" photo situations.

.

Anywhere you are if you want to take good shot you have to think about all of this, if you don t you will not improve your photo and will just have tourist picture that everyone can shot, but that can be cool also

ANDS! said:
And not all lenses are the same, even the same lens.

If you have some pb with such a lens give it back to the shop
You know, I think it is not a good idea to tell him you picture is very nice, and what is wrong is just because of the lens. Everyone need to be aware of the technical pb he faces, you , me and The_carper too

ANDS! · Jul 9, 2007

Dont get my wrong, I'm sure the reason his photos are coming out are because of what he's doing, BUT I have taken similar shots with different lenses and some lenses are just sharper at a longer length than others. I'm willing to bet had he been using the 18-55, he'd have had better results.

geminigrl24 · Jul 10, 2007

I wold have liked to see her feet.

snownow · Jul 10, 2007

Other than the stuff above, I dont really like shots of people take from above them. My eye seems to like shots of people taken low, or directly at them. Shots from tall people taken down at shorter people dont seem to have a look i like (unless a group shot). Might try kneeling to change the comp,It also looks like you used flash for fill? Your exif data does not show it... To help now (other than the focus) You might try to bump up the contrast a bit before you convert it to black and white, mabey a little unsharp mask...

If you think it is the lens, send it in to be re-calibrated.

snownow · Jul 10, 2007

MrMatthieu said:
The carper, the lens is not the problem
You have a IS ( stabilized ) lens , that means you should never have picture out of focus !!! :mrgreen:

Check at what are the exifs of your shot, I guess too long exposure time, maybe 1/30, Or just you did nt make the focus properly on the face of the girl, but this lens is very good and can make very good shot

Mat

Hmm focus and IS two different beasts? IS will help with hand shake and motion blurr, not help you focus.... His shot was 1/60th per his exif. The shot is just soft, the camera (or him) was just a little off focus.

One more tip, try to focus on the eyes of people, at f 4.5 (what this shot is) you should have no problems if you try to keep the face and eyes in focus.