C&C on a Portrait Please

[Daf]

Hi all,

Just practicing on the kids and wanted to throw possible the best of the practice lot out there and see if I can get some tips and advice. The attached photo was shot with a Nikon D40 - 55mm f/10 1/60 ISO 800 - using a SB-400 hot shoe flash with the flash directed at the ceiling. The room is lit only by some open windows to the subjects far left. I'm learning Lightroom 3 at the same time so I'm also asking for any tips or advice on the processing as well as the shot itself.

My initial reaction to the shot is that the pose is wonderful - I think I may have captured it well but 2 things bother me. I can't tell what is "good" lighting due to my inexperience and I think that the background is too "brown-ish" - and it's keeping the subject from "popping" out. Is that a good assessment?

Anyway - thank you so much for any suggestions. I really want to get good at this.

Daf

 

[tevo]

Investigate "the exposure triangle". Once you understand that, you will look at the settings you used for this picture and make a scrunchy face.

 

[photo guy]

There seems to be too much light as some of the chair is not looling like it should with the dog to make it a nicer shot

 

[bazooka]

Tevo, I'm curious to know why you disagree with the chosen settings? @55mm, 1/60th is a decent, possibly slightly slow shutter speed for handholding while using some ambient light. F/10 made sure the dogs entire face is in focus. ISO 800 to boost the output.

It looks like the highlights on the dog and the blanket are blown, so I think you could back off a stop on ISO, or flash, depending on how much flash power you have available relative to what you used and how much ambient you want/are using. You could probably have opened up a stop on the aperture without sacrificing nose sharpness as the background is quite detailed. This would buy you more exposure so you can decrease ISO and/or flash power.

The strong high-contrast verticle lines of what looks like the chair on the right are distracting... the more subtle verticals top right are not bad.

Even though you bounced the flash, off the celing, you still got some light in the eyes which is good. I think a little more frontal light and a little less 'top' light would be better, as a lot of my attention is attracted to the area of the blanket behind the dogs head. Instead of bouncing off the ceiling, maybe there was a wall to your right or left that would have bounced instead? By bouncing it straight up, you're basically recreating typical indoors lighting which creates highlights on the top of the head, which isn't really what you are going for.

 

[tevo]

Tevo, I'm curious to know why you disagree with the chosen settings? @55mm, 1/60th is a decent, possibly slightly slow shutter speed for handholding while using some ambient light. F/10 made sure the dogs entire face is in focus. ISO 800 to boost the output.

It looks like the highlights on the dog and the blanket are blown, so I think you could back off a stop on ISO, or flash, depending on how much flash power you have available relative to what you used and how much ambient you want/are using. You could probably have opened up a stop on the aperture without sacrificing nose sharpness as the background is quite detailed.

The strong high-contrast verticle lines of what looks like the chair on the right are distracting... the more subtle verticals top right are not bad.

Even though you bounced the flash, off the celing, you still got some light in the eyes which is good. I think a little more frontal light and a little less 'top' light would be better, as a lot of my attention is attracted to the area of the blanket behind the dogs head. Instead of bouncing off the ceiling, maybe there was a wall to your right or left that would have bounced instead? By bouncing it straight up, you're basically recreating typical indoors lighting which creates highlights on the top of the head, which isn't really what you are going for.

Exactly that - the shutter was slightly slow - AND he was using a flash. He could have easily shot 1/200 (or thereabouts) using the flash - had he opened up the aperture a little bit. I would say he only needs f/5.6 to leave the dog's face in focus. With that, I would have shot ISO 400, f/4, 1/200, bouncing the flash or angling it just off the plane of focus. Not to say this photo is bad, just slightly overexposed . blown highlights (to some extent) - nothing photoshop can't fix. I just would have shot it differently

 

[gsgary]

There is a lot of ambient light in the shot due to your settings 1/60 and iso800 and F10, when shooting ambient and flash your aperture controls Flash exposure and shutter speed controls ambient, so drop you iso to 100

 

[Daf]

Thanks everyone!

I think I do understand the exposure triangle theory, but I'm not very good at implementing it yet. Sounds like I was pretty close and that is encouraging. I'm getting a lot of contradicting advice from my camera and monitors I think. I actually thought the image as too dark, imagine my surprise when you guys were discussing it being slightly over exposed. As far as what the camera is telling me some shots are under-exposed according to the bar meter in the view finder yet yield very bright in the preview window. Then on my monitor they appear dark. I think my preview may be too bright.

My model is getting antsy and hard to control so my experiments may have to wait a bit but I did get a few more off. This one is at 50mm f/5.6 (as per suggested) 1/160th ISO 400. The cover on the chair is blown out to the right of the subject - man! This lighting thing is a real juggling act and role of the dice in one!

Thanks for the replies! I will continue to work on this.

Daf

 

[tevo]

Thanks everyone!

I think I do understand the exposure triangle theory, but I'm not very good at implementing it yet. Sounds like I was pretty close and that is encouraging. I'm getting a lot of contradicting advice from my camera and monitors I think. I actually thought the image as too dark, imagine my surprise when you guys were discussing it being slightly over exposed. As far as what the camera is telling me some shots are under-exposed according to the bar meter in the view finder yet yield very bright in the preview window. Then on my monitor they appear dark. I think my preview may be too bright.

My model is getting antsy and hard to control so my experiments may have to wait a bit but I did get a few more off. This one is at 50mm f/5.6 (as per suggested) 1/160th ISO 400. The cover on the chair is blown out to the right of the subject - man! This lighting thing is a real juggling act and role of the dice in one!

Thanks for the replies! I will continue to work on this.

Daf

I like the lighting much better on this one - not as many blown highlights. Is that an aussie? I have a blue merle sleeping right next to me c: I'll post a picture!

 

[Daf]

Yes - we have 2 Aussies - a blue and a red merle. Here is a photo of both of them. Please do post yours!

 

[gsgary]

Here's one of my little Archie, just had a 10x15 printed for an exhibition i'm having in a cafe

And here's a blue merle i shot at an agility event

 

[Daf]

gsgary - nice!!

 

[tevo]

Here's one of my little Archie, just had a 10x15 printed for an exhibition i'm having in a cafe

And here's a blue merle i shot at an agility event

Archie is one ugly mo-fuggin dog

 

[gsgary]

Here's one of my little Archie, just had a 10x15 printed for an exhibition i'm having in a cafe

And here's a blue merle i shot at an agility event

Archie is one ugly mo-fuggin dog

You have got to be joking he is a fanny magnet when i take him to the pub he get all the women

 

[Daf]

Ha ha!

gsgary - I really like that photo (above) - it looks like some thought went into the placement and color of the "props" and environment. Or did he just plop down and you snapped the shot? One of the questions I had with the original post was concerning the colors surrounding the subject. Seems to make a huge difference. The white in the photo of Archie makes him pop out - but I didn't have the same luck with Pearle - because she has white in her she blended. Is it just trial and error on getting the perfect scene for the subject? Thanks for any thoughts on that.

Daf

 

[gsgary]

All the shots above were taken with studio lighting, the one above he is not allowed on the furniture so it is easy to make him stay, if you look in his right eye you can see the catch light of the beauty dish i used