Amature portraits - Please critique (56k warn)

Johnboy2978 · Oct 31, 2005

Hi all. One of my friends wanted me to take some photos of his daughter. They were wanting some 'less than formal' fall pics. This is the first time I have ever attempted to photograph someone else's child. I am happy with my own, but you are never quite sure what others want. At any rate, these are what I came up with. The lighting was less than desirable. It was a nice day, but pretty shaded by the time we started.

Some of the things I learned....
(1) Shoot fast and shoot many
(2) bracket like there's no tomorrow
(3) shoot as high a shutter speed as you can to avoid motion blur (though I still had problems with it)
(4) use tripod as much as possible
(5) Drink heartily afterwards

Now, could you please give some feedback as to what I did right or wrong.
Thanks for looking!

Verbal · Oct 31, 2005

Is that photoshop blur I smell? It looks a tad messy to me. The backgrounds are for the most part pretty busy and distracting, and it's hard to find your point of focus on the shots. Also, it appears that the shutter speed wasn't up quite high enough on some...

Verbal · Oct 31, 2005

Oh, and not to be too harsh... I like 6 and 7. =)

Johnboy2978 · Oct 31, 2005

#2 has a ps gausian blur to try to calm the background down a bit. #3 has a lens blur courtesy of ps, which I was unsure about, but left it. They chose the destination, which is basically a wooded national park area. As I said, they were looking for fall pics.

Any blur in the others, are from her movement and my inability to up the shutter speed in time trying to keep up with her.

Overall are these decent, sucky, what are your thoughts? I am kinda torn.

Verbal · Oct 31, 2005

Well, the compositions are pretty darn good on some of them, the subject is cute, the colors are pretty good... I guess the main thing is the blur on those, and all of them just seem to be low quality...I spy some pixelation there. Quite a bit of it, actually. Is it just becuase you made them smaller to post or something?

Uselessdreamer1 · Oct 31, 2005

i think for a first try with a different child these pictures are decent. There is work to be done, but i thought a few shined through

Good Job!

Alison · Oct 31, 2005

Your posing and ability to capture her natural emotions is great. The lighting takes away from the photos for me. I think a fill flash or reflector would have made a big difference here. For children I usually use a minimum of 1/60th and try to keep around an f/8 if I'm looking to keep the background in focus or f/2.8 if I'm looking to get a good DOF. Great first attempt and again my suggestion would be to use a fill flash or get someone to hold a reflector for you

clemeys · Oct 31, 2005

#4 & #7 are my fav's - I really like 7!!

What Allison said about a fill flash or reflector was what I was thinkin, especially for the tree shots...way too much shadowing on her face = distracting.

Are they blurry b/c of resize?

Johnboy2978 · Oct 31, 2005

There's quite a bit of compression. The 8x10 are 2+megs in size, these for posting are about 100k +/-. I agree about the shadows, but not much I could do about that. I don't own a deflector, but I think it would've helped a bunch.

clemeys · Oct 31, 2005

Johnboy2978 said:
There's quite a bit of compression. The 8x10 are 2+megs in size, these for posting are about 100k +/-. I agree about the shadows, but not much I could do about that. I don't own a deflector, but I think it would've helped a bunch.

couldn't u have used at least the on camera w/ the pwr turned down?

Vmann · Nov 1, 2005

Nice photos and I agree with Allison about capturing the emotion and the use of a fill flash or reflector.

I use alot of times a 4x4 or something like that foam core board for a reflecter. Its white and seems to usually reflect the right amount of light on the subject... and its cheap to buy

Taralyn Romero · Nov 1, 2005

Number 7 is my favorite and I agree with the others on the flash and your ability to capture her emotions. Not bad for your first time!

LizM · Nov 1, 2005

Nice emotion captures. What was your film speed? Seems like the camera was struggling to get the shutter speed up without compromising the Apature.

Johnboy2978 · Nov 2, 2005

The settings used in these were the following: Film speed - ISO 200 for all, aperture f/4 - f/5.6 and shutter ranged from 1/3" to 1/45, manual settings, no flash. Tripod was used for most of these as well.

I very rarely use on-camera flash for anything, but I agree that fill flash would have helped some of these. I prefer when possible to use ambient light, b/c I hate that overexposed look using the camera flash and I don't own any add-on flash.

As soon as I got in the car, I was thinking, damn, why didn't you bump up the film speed or shoot in aperture or shutter priority? I don't know, just didn't. So that brings me to a question, when you guys are shooting outdoor portraits what setting would you use? Given similar lighting (partly shaded) and time of day (about 15:00) would you have shot manual like I did, or choose a priority setting and adjust from there?

Christie Photo · Nov 2, 2005

Number 8 is the "standout." Great composition! Classic S curve AND a wonderful, deep background.

As discussed, the lighting is an issue. Without seeing the area, I'll guess that maybe a different time of day might have helped.

Man, it's SOOOO close. Nice job!

-Pete