Amara

[DanOstergren]

A portrait I shot yesterday of one of my housemates, Amara.

Shot in natural light.
Canon 5D classic, Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 lens set to f/5, 1/125th sec, ISO 640.

 

[DanOstergren]

bump

 

[CherylL]

Beautiful image and woman. I love the 85mm, but yours works better than mine Would love for you to make a processing tut.

 

[Derrel]

One comment about this photo. I saw it a few days ago,the first time on my iMac, and tonight I am looking at it much much smaller on my iPhone. When I saw this photo for the first time on the iMac screen I found the out of focus nature of her lips to be somewhat disconcerting, but seeing this photo much smaller tonight It was not nearly as apparent until I zoomed in.

As I mentioned, when seen big The shallow depth of field makes this photo less than satisfying, but when seen small on the phone, it looks pretty good. I think that depth of field is something that people are either sensitive to,very sensitive to, or somewhat less sensitive to, and that perhaps attitudes about depth of field are built up over time.

In many such photos as this one, some of us have seen them done by studio photographers for 30 or 40 years in which a very small aperture and a lotta strobe power has been applied,and pretty much everything is in incredibly sharp focus. Is my understanding that depth of field is a matter of taste, and it is up to the photographer to position the depth of field and to decide upon what effect he or she wishes to have in the final photo.

In some e Chuck Close portraits that have been done with a 4 x 5" view camera and long telephoto lens like a 360 mm or even longer, often times only the eyes are in focus and the tip of the nose and ears are out of focus. There is a strange look to large format close up portraits in which the depth of field band is only about 1 inch deep,and in which the ears are decidedly out of focus.

I don't know… It is really up to the photographer… I was taught to strive for a deeper depth of field, and let's keep in mind that depth of field is calculated by seeing roughly an 8 x 10" print at "appropriate viewing distance "
I think this photo works pretty well when seen on an iPhone screen, but would not look nearly as good if it were to be blown up six or seven diameters and magazine printed. If it were made into a large blowup like a 16 x 20" inkjet print , I do not think the photo would hold up, and the out of focus nature of her lips and slight defocus on her nose would become an annoyance, or would look like a photographic contrivance

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

I am an absolute novice when it comes to portraiture, so my opinions matter not. Something is making her skin appear almost plastic-like to me on her cheeks and forehead. Only her nose looks right.

 

[DanOstergren]

Beautiful image and woman. I love the 85mm, but yours works better than mine Would love for you to make a processing tut.

Thank you.

I've been considering it but I would need a better computer to do so.

 

[DanOstergren]

One comment about this photo. I saw it a few days ago,the first time on my iMac, and tonight I am looking at it much much smaller on my iPhone. When I saw this photo for the first time on the iMac screen I found the out of focus nature of her lips to be somewhat disconcerting, but seeing this photo much smaller tonight It was not nearly as apparent until I zoomed in.

As I mentioned, when seen big The shallow depth of field makes this photo less than satisfying, but when seen small on the phone, it looks pretty good. I think that depth of field is something that people are either sensitive to,very sensitive to, or somewhat less sensitive to, and that perhaps attitudes about depth of field are built up over time.

In many such photos as this one, some of us have seen them done by studio photographers for 30 or 40 years in which a very small aperture and a lotta strobe power has been applied,and pretty much everything is in incredibly sharp focus. Is my understanding that depth of field is a matter of taste, and it is up to the photographer to position the depth of field and to decide upon what effect he or she wishes to have in the final photo.

In some e Chuck Close portraits that have been done with a 4 x 5" view camera and long telephoto lens like a 360 mm or even longer, often times only the eyes are in focus and the tip of the nose and ears are out of focus. There is a strange look to large format close up portraits in which the depth of field band is only about 1 inch deep,and in which the ears are decidedly out of focus.

I don't know… It is really up to the photographer… I was taught to strive for a deeper depth of field, and let's keep in mind that depth of field is calculated by seeing roughly an 8 x 10" print at "appropriate viewing distance "
I think this photo works pretty well when seen on an iPhone screen, but would not look nearly as good if it were to be blown up six or seven diameters and magazine printed. If it were made into a large blowup like a 16 x 20" inkjet print , I do not think the photo would hold up, and the out of focus nature of her lips and slight defocus on her nose would become an annoyance, or would look like a photographic contrivance

My 85mm has a tendency to sometimes back focus, causing this to happen from time to time. Normally f/5 gives me plenty of depth of field to work with, but in this case the focus just didn't land on the eye that I had intended it to. I agree that the result is less than satisfying and I also wish I had gotten better focus on the eye closest to the camera, but it's not a factor that I feel ruins the photo or detracts from it's purpose of showcasing the model's beauty. Fortunately I wasn't shooting for a magazine or intending to create a large scale print, otherwise I absolutely would have rented a different camera altogether. The purpose of the shot is to put on the model's comp card and so the model can send it into talent agencies. There were other similar shots as well with perfect focus, but even the said perfect focus in those shot's didn't cause them to stand up to this shot. To me this shot had the best angular composition and expression, making it my favorite shot.

I recently picked up a 100mm f/2.8 macro lens, but have only used it a couple of times. It doesn't seem to have the back focusing issue that my 85mm has, so I think I'm going to try using it more often. I definitely favor the 85mm focal length though because I feel like I get the perfect amount of versatility from it.

 

[DanOstergren]

I am an absolute novice when it comes to portraiture, so my opinions matter not. Something is making her skin appear almost plastic-like to me on her cheeks and forehead. Only her nose looks right.

Thanks for the feedback.