Business portrait for CC

[PropilotBW]

I took this a couple months ago, but was looking for critiques on improvement.

Shot with:
EM-5 Mark II
M.Zuiko 45mm 1.8
ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/250 sec.

 

[tirediron]

Not bad. A couple of thoughts on the image as whole: The background while nicely unfocused is a bit busy for my taste, and your shooting angle puts her in a subordinate position; both of these may have been deliberate and appropriate and if so, fine. What is her position and how will the image be used?

As the nit-picky... it looks to me as if you may have neglected to give the image the once-over while you were in the pixel room. Here's a minor rework just to soften up the fine wrinkles around the eyes. You wouldn't want to remove them entirely (unless the client insisted), but I think a little less intensity improves things. I also warmed her skin tone slightly. As well, note the circles. There's a piece of fuzz in her hair, a loose thread on her jacket and a piece of lint as well. These are all things that should be taken care of before anyone but you sees the image.

 

[PropilotBW]

Not bad. A couple of thoughts on the image as whole: The background while nicely unfocused is a bit busy for my taste, and your shooting angle puts her in a subordinate position; both of these may have been deliberate and appropriate and if so, fine. What is her position and how will the image be used?

As the nit-picky... it looks to me as if you may have neglected to give the image the once-over while you were in the pixel room. Here's a minor rework just to soften up the fine wrinkles around the eyes. You wouldn't want to remove them entirely (unless the client insisted), but I think a little less intensity improves things. I also warmed her skin tone slightly. As well, note the circles. There's a piece of fuzz in her hair, a loose thread on her jacket and a piece of lint as well. These are all things that should be taken care of before anyone but you sees the image.

Thanks for your reply and time spent looking at the photo.
This is a church staff portrait, therefore I felt it best to shoot from a higher angle.
I admit, I didn't spend a lot of time searching for some of the things you circled. That is a rookie editors mistake. I think your edit on the crows feet look great, but I also significantly softened them already. I was worried that I was going too far in creating a fake image.

How would you rate the pose?

 

[Braineack]

the processing is flat, very flat and gray.

take white slider, and bump it up a bit.

here I did the following:

temp +2
tint +2
exposure +30
contrast +5
blacks -5
saturation +5

 

[tirediron]

Thanks for your reply and time spent looking at the photo.
This is a church staff portrait, therefore I felt it best to shoot from a higher angle.
I admit, I didn't spend a lot of time searching for some of the things you circled. That is a rookie editors mistake. I think your edit on the crows feet look great, but I also significantly softened them already. I was worried that I was going too far in creating a fake image.

How would you rate the pose?

Okay, that was a conscious decision, works for me! As for the crow's feet; that has to be a judgement call on your part. Remember we're generally processing to produce the image that the client thinks resembles them, not what necessarily does. She may be fine or even happy with them, or hate them utterly. I would present her with 2-3 options as far as the wrinkles go and let her choose. I think the pose is absolutely fine for your stated purpose!

 

[Rick50]

tirediron and Braineack have made good suggestions. I can't add much but the biggest dislike is the background and also wondering why such a short lens?

 

[PropilotBW]

tirediron and Braineack have made good suggestions. I can't add much but the biggest dislike is the background and also wondering why such a short lens?

Thanks, I suppose I could have shot with the 75-300 zoom, but I don't think that lens is as sharp at 75mm as compared to the 45mm prime. Also, I am shooting Micro Four Thirds, so that 45mm is really not a short lens. It would be a 90mm on 35mm camera body, which from what I understand, is actually a really nice portrait length.

 

[tirediron]

... Also, I am shooting Micro Four Thirds, so that 45mm is really not a short lens. It would be a 90mm on 35mm camera body, which from what I understand, is actually a really nice portrait length.

Sort of... it has a field of view equivalent (approximately) to that of a 90mm lens on a full-frame body, BUT.... The rest of the optical characteristics are essentially that of a 45mm since focal length is focal length is focal length.

 

[PropilotBW]

Hmmm ... I....errr....

Sounds good!

 

[Derrel]

Well known Austin portrait and Commercial photographer Kirk Tuck wrote a blog post about a year ago about using the 45 millimeter lens on his M 4/3 format camera. He noted that this focal length can be used as a telephoto and as a sort of wide-angle lens just by moving the camera backward or forward a few feet in either direction. Based on the above question, why such a short focal length lens?, it seems to me that this image is reading as the wide-angle type of picture and not as a telephoto type picture. I think this is mostly due to subliminal cues. We see how the woman's face is rendered yet the background appears recognizable and the high-frequency detail of the bushes comes into perhaps a bit too high a degree of focus. Mr. Tuck recently last month mentioned that when using small format cameras for commercial portraits, he has now taken to using Photoshop to select the background area around his subjects, to invert that and then to defocus that backdrop and in that way imitating or mimicking the look that he would get from a larger sensor camera.

I am not trying to start a format argument here but the way backgrounds are rendered either in good focus or an extremely blown out detail is sort of the province of say the difference between an iPhone sized sensor vs 6x7 centimeter medium format film portraiture. Once the camera format drops below roughly 24 by 36 millimeters or full frame, depth of field at closer distances begins to increase at an exponential rate. By the time a camera format drops into the 110 film format size, or the much smallrtbcamera phone sensor size, portrait backgrounds are rendered with excruciatingly high levels of focus. Depth of field is regulated by sensor size, lens focal length, camera to subject distance, and subject to background distance. Everything comes together in a big stew.

My experience is that 45 mm is simply too short of a focal length for this type of Head and Shoulders view of a person if the desired effect is to create a telephoto look portrait with heavy background blurring. This photo has a semi wide-angle look to it, based on the type of visual tropes we have become accustomed to in professional portrait photography.


But back to the Kirk TUck examples of the cook in the diner. By using an M4 / 3 format camera and 45 mm lens he was able to achieve very good scenic views of the cook and the restaurant and the surrounding seating areas, something that would be literally impossible to do in a single exposure if using a larger format camera like a 6x6 medium format film camera.

 

[pixmedic]

when I had my olympus m4/3 camera, i preferred the 75mm f/1.8 for portraits.
but, the trade-off is that with the smaller sensor you get that smaller "field of view".
for outdoor shoots though it should be less of an issue if you have the room to move back.

braineacks fine tuning was a nice improvement.

 

[Derrel]

when I had my olympus m4/3 camera, i preferred the 75mm f/1.8 for portraits.
but, the trade-off is that with the smaller sensor you get that smaller "field of view".
for outdoor shoots though it should be less of an issue if you have the room to move back.

braineacks fine tuning was a nice improvement.

I agree B's fine-tuning was very helpful, and gave the photo a little bit more punch a little bit more pizzazz, yet without drawing too much attention to any of the things that he did.

As far as focal length of the lens used for a portrait, not long ago I watched a very good video by the slanted lens.com on YouTube in which they compared 24 millimeter to 200mm lengths. They took photos of the same subject in the same location with the various lens lengths. One of the critical differences is the angular view of the lens behind the subject. The shorter the lens the more background shows behind the subject, even when we keep the head and shoulder size identical between the different lens lengths. I think this photo has perfect lens rendering of her face and features, but the amount of foliage behind her seems a bit more than might be considered ideal. I just can't help but want to see the background with more blurring.Even if it comes from Lightroom's blur tool.

 

[Derrel]

I took the original file did a few quick adjustments. I hit that thread a little bit on the pocket, changed the white balance slightly,used a little bit of minus sharpening on the foliage around her,and dropped the luminance value on the greens a little bit. I did a value of 20 tooth whitening pass ,(just a tiny bit). This doesn't have the punch of B's edit, but it does have a more subtle, darker background. It would be very easy to lighten her up or shift the picture warmer, while still keeping the background below her by a stop or two.

 

[PropilotBW]

when I had my olympus m4/3 camera, i preferred the 75mm f/1.8 for portraits.
but, the trade-off is that with the smaller sensor you get that smaller "field of view".
for outdoor shoots though it should be less of an issue if you have the room to move back.

braineacks fine tuning was a nice improvement.

I agree B's fine-tuning was very helpful, and gave the photo a little bit more punch a little bit more pizzazz, yet without drawing too much attention to any of the things that he did.

As far as focal length of the lens used for a portrait, not long ago I watched a very good video by the slanted lens.com on YouTube in which they compared 24 millimeter to 200mm lengths. They took photos of the same subject in the same location with the various lens lengths. One of the critical differences is the angular view of the lens behind the subject. The shorter the lens the more background shows behind the subject, even when we keep the head and shoulder size identical between the different lens lengths. I think this photo has perfect lens rendering of her face and features, but the amount of foliage behind her seems a bit more than might be considered ideal. I just can't help but want to see the background with more blurring.Even if it comes from Lightroom's blur tool.

Next time around, I'll make a conscious effort to create more distance between subject and background. thanks for the suggestion.