CC on Kid Photo...Trying for Bokeh Effect/tough lighting?s

[RebeccaAPhotography]

Hi guys!

Soooo I took your guys advice and I tried to do the bokeh effect. Or the blurred background. Here is just one picture that I want to show you that I'm confused on how I'm shooting.

Photo 1

f 4.5
120 shutter speed
IS0 200
74mm


MH9 by Rebecca Andresen Photography, on Flickr

what I like: Well I like how I did get the softness in the background.
what I dont like: I'm kinda confused!! I played with my settings A LOT in this shoot. I'm ONLY shooting in Manual. How come I'm getting the sky so WHITE. Can I please have some input on how to fix that.

I did a maternity shoot for a friend yesterday. I just uploaded the pics I'll have some up for critic some day. BUT I noticed in that shoot I also had a few pics that had a WHITE sky and I'm curious to see what I'm doin wrong.

Thanks in advanced

 

[Ballistics]

I'm not certain, but I don't think thats Bokeh. I'm pretty sure that is just a shallow DOF. I think bokeh is the out of focus light in the form of the shape of the lens opening.

Like this

 

[RebeccaAPhotography]

who was it Khm? is that the nickname he gave a good website but I hadn't had time to click on it. Lol! I know it was on wikipedia. My fam is up from CT so I'm not doin much while they are here. They are gonna be my guinnea pigs. What I was trying to acheive in this pic is the softness in the background. I was trying to position myself futhur from the kid and the kid in the middle so that the background would be shallow? (is that the correct wording I want to use?)

How come my sky looks so white and washed out?

 

[Stradawhovious]

Grab yourself a faster lens. At 4.5. Unless you are much closer to your subject, and/or much further away from your background its difficult to get the creamy, smeared, smudgy, blown out of focus shallow DOF look. Try a faster lens shooting at around 2.8 or wider.

The sky is so white because it is so much brighter than your subject which you are (the camera is) metering for. In this case, to get the sky nicely exposed, the boy would be terribly underexposed.

A couple of things that can be done......... I know Nikon has a feature in the camera and software called "active D lighting" that helps with that, I'm sure other manufacturers have tue same type of thing.

Also you could shoot through a graduated ND filter to help correct exposure.

 

[Geaux]

I'm not certain, but I don't think thats Bokeh. I'm pretty sure that is just a shallow DOF. I think bokeh is the out of focus light in the form of the shape of the lens opening.

Like this

In photography, bokeh (Originally

/ˈboʊkɛ/[SUP][1][/SUP],

/ˈboʊkeɪ/ boh-kay, and also sometimes heard as

/ˈboʊkə/ boh-kə,[SUP][2][/SUP] Japanese: [boke]) is the blur,[SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP] or the aesthetic quality of the blur,[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][6][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP] in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.

 

[tirediron]

Bokeh: One of the most misunderstood terms in photography today. Bokeh refers to the way your lens renders the out of focus elements of an image. The appearance of the Bokeh is affected by the aperture you select, the shape and number of aperture blades in the lens, focus-distance and camera to background distance as well as the type of light in the scene.

A sharp, bright light, such as the small bulb [relatively] close to the camera will render a far more pronounced appearance than a scene in which the light is broad and diffuse.

 

[Geaux]

I'm sorry for not commenting on the photo earlier. Photo is decent, but blown out skies and that vignette ruin it for me.

 

[RebeccaAPhotography]

I'm sorry for not commenting on the photo earlier. Photo is decent, but blown out skies and that vignette ruin it for me.

Yea I was playing with the vignette... that I can get rid of. Is the reason for the blown out sky b/c of how I shot? When I buy a faster lens will that help??

 

[KmH]

I'm not certain, but I don't think thats Bokeh. I'm pretty sure that is just a shallow DOF. I think bokeh is the out of focus light in the form of the shape of the lens opening.

Like this

There are 2 types of bokeh.

You have posted an example of "Hollywood" bokeh, and an example that illustrates poor quality Hollywood bokeh at that, because the blurred blobs are polygonal rather than round.

The other type is called "Cream Cheese" bokeh - Find a Flickr group dedicated to using Nikon's 'Cream Machine' the AF 85 mm f/1.4D for examples of hig quality 'cream cheese' bokeh.

 

[Stradawhovious]

Is the reason for the blown out sky b/c of how I shot? When I buy a faster lens will that help??

Yes, and no respectively.

Yes it's because of how you shot. You metered (or had your camera meter) for the kid, and not the sky. You probably have single point metering or center weighted metering selected. You might have been able to fix it to some minor degree by using a full frame metering, but more than likely you would have gotten a slightly overexposed sky and a slightly underexposed kid. Ironically, the faster lens, if shot the same way, would probably make things worse on the exposure end.

The easiest way to fix the issue would be to use fill flash or off camera lighting. Expose the picture for the sky (leaving the child naturally horribly underexposed) then use a strobe to light the subject.

*Poof* Decent exposure on the kid, and the sky.

The faster lens will help with your DOF, and getting that creamy background, but won't fix your exposure.

 

[KmH]

Whoops!

 

[KmH]

what I dont like: I'm kinda confused!! I played with my settings A LOT in this shoot. I'm ONLY shooting in Manual. How come I'm getting the sky so WHITE. Can I please have some input on how to fix that.

What metering mode did you use to establish the manual mode settings you used?

Please explain why you captured the part of the photo highlighted in red, and why you didn't use any kind of fill lighting:

 

[RebeccaAPhotography]

what I dont like: I'm kinda confused!! I played with my settings A LOT in this shoot. I'm ONLY shooting in Manual. How come I'm getting the sky so WHITE. Can I please have some input on how to fix that.

What metering mode did you use to establish the manual mode settings you used?



Please explain why you captured the part of the photo highlighted in red, and why you didn't use any kind of fill lighting:

The metering mode I used was the auto built into the camera, I have 4 choices to choose from. evaluative, partial, spot, and center-weighted average. I used the evaluative metering.. . Honestly I just learned about metering mode from you folks in the past few days. I'm aggressively trying to figure out what I can do differently and experimenting with it as we speak

As far as the fill lighting. Should I have touched that up in editing?? I'm just learning my Photo shop stuff too. Newbie alert ROFL! I just experimented with it in a different photo. Should I have done that? I dont have an extra flashes yet. I personally liked how it was off to the side and it got the ocean too, I guess just preference. Should I try and do a centered edit around him, would that look better??

 

[SabrinaO]

The sky is blown because of your metering and how you metered. Use spot meter and expose for the sky. This will underexpose the boy but the sky will be nice and blue. Use fill flash or a reflector to bring back the exposure to the boy.

And please... lose the vignette! :x