Another "How do you get this effect" thread...

Sarah23 · Jun 23, 2008

I love this picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petam/2604939279/

I know its had a lot of PP done to it, but what I am wondering is how did she get such a sharp image when she shot at f/3.2? Did she just do a lot of sharpening on the child?

Also...the background and child are exposed so well...but the flash did not fire so she didn't expose for the background and use fill flash or anything like that. Again, is all of this just done in PP? I LOVE LOVE LOVE how this looks and really would like to learn. I dont really want to ask her, though, as I dont know her and don't want her or anything and dont want to bug her.

What do you guys think she did?

frXnz kafka · Jun 23, 2008

It's not unreasonable to get an image that sharp at f/3.2 (or f/1.2 for that matter), and the fact that it's probably about 1/6th it's original size helps it appear sharper.

As for exposure, the sky IS a little overexposed (the added vignette helps in the corners), and it doesn't look like they were in direct sunlight, so I'd say just good metering, and maybe a little post. Maybe a reflector in front of the kid for some fill light.

EDIT: Also, just because the Exif says the flash didn't fire, that does mean there was no flash. I'm pretty sure my camera doesn't register a flash fire if the flash isn't ON the shoe. But it doesn't look there was flash, so just a little FYI.

DeadEye · Jun 23, 2008

Good glass will be razor sharp even wide but expensive (L in canon). If radio triggered flash ,the data will say not fired as there is no ttl comunication.

kellylindseyphotography · Jun 23, 2008

My guess is that she used nicole v.'s color pop, probably took 2 shots (one for the sky, one for the foreground) then merged then in PS. And had perfect exposure, hence the sharpness. Also, she probably just sharpened for web. ETA that 3.2 when your back that far is much different than doing a close up with 3.2 (from my beginner's understanding..)

Oh, and that might not be the original sky it might be something she had saved previously.

kellylindseyphotography · Jun 23, 2008

Oh and I positively love her work. I've seen her on ILP, she does amazing stuff.

djacobox372 · Jun 24, 2008

That's composited from two photos. This image has two planes of focus, which is impossible without compositing. The background (clouds), and the foreground (child) are in focus but the hills in the mid-ground are not.

prodigy2k7 · Jun 26, 2008

If no flash was used, its obvious that it was partly cloudy because there are no hard shadows near the subject. Its just a good lens. Who says F/3.2 cant be sharp? There might be some pp, but probably not much, bring out the colors a bit more?

frXnz kafka · Jun 26, 2008

djacobox372 said:
That's composited from two photos. This image has two planes of focus, which is impossible without compositing. The background (clouds), and the foreground (child) are in focus but the hills in the mid-ground are not.

The clouds aren't in focus, actually.

Alpha · Jun 26, 2008

It's just a sharp photo with a saturation bump, slightly compressed tone range, and vignetting.

djacobox372 · Jun 26, 2008

frXnz kafka said:
The clouds aren't in focus, actually.

True, they aren't 100% in focus, but DOF falls off WAY too fast behind the child for the clouds to be that crisp, either it was shot with a wider DOF and was blurred a bit after the fact or it was a composite.

Also there appears to be a photoshop lighting effect on the child to punch things up.

Of course all of these are guesses, there are about two dozen ways to achieve any result.