Christmas portraits for C&C

Simonie · Dec 28, 2011

Hey everybody,

Here are the best pictures I took from my 8 months old (I know, I know!!) with my 50mm. I tried to give it a Christmas feel and was my first attempt at a portrait (compared to candid). I was shooting on aperture mode and just noticed the iso speed on the first and third one. It's pretty high and I should have used manual. Tell me what you think. (They were edited).

1.

1/160, f/1.8, iso 1600

Untitled by Simonie13, on Flickr

2.

1/160, f/2.0, iso 500

Untitled by Simonie13, on Flickr

3.

1/160, f/2.0, iso 800

Untitled by Simonie13, on Flickr

MTVision · Dec 28, 2011

Your depth of field is too shallow in all 3. If you had stopped down a bit and moved further away I think it would have made these a lot better.

If you were 5 feet away shooting at f/1.8 you'd only have about 2.5" of DOF which isn't very much at all.

In #1 Her hands and ornament are OOF and you cut part of her hands off. Are these all in camera crops? Hard to tell but you might have missed focus on the eyes which isn't abnormal. It can be really hard to nail focus with such a shallow depth of field. Looks like she has some hot/blown areas on her skin and dress.

#2 ha basically all the same issues. The out of focus hands are the biggest issue IMO - its distracting.

#3 I think you missed focus here. Try not to chop body parts - like chopping half the foot.

They look (on my monitor) like they could all use some warming up. She looks too cool on my end.

Compositions are pretty good and it looks like you got down on her level. She's an adorable little girl. The DOF is what hurts these photos the most. With a larger DOF you probably would've nailed the focus

Simonie · Dec 28, 2011

No cropping was done. I know they are shallow and it's really hard to get a good focus. I wanted to blur the tree as much as possible and really have her face in focus. She was sitting as far away from the tree as possible but I had to deal with distance issues on my hand.

Thanks for your C&C!

Ms.Nash · Dec 28, 2011

Cute subject for sure !! I think these are nice pics - the only thing I noticed was Christmas ball placement in regards to her head.

Ms.Nash · Dec 28, 2011

.... And the crop

MTVision · Dec 28, 2011

Simonie said:
No cropping was done. I know they are shallow and it's really hard to get a good focus. I wanted to blur the tree as much as possible and really have her face in focus. She was sitting as far away from the tree as possible but I had to deal with distance issues on my hand.

Thanks for your C&C!

DOF isn't only determined by aperture. The closer you are to your subject the shallower the depth of field. You could've shot at f/5.6 - stood 5 feet from her and you would've had a little over 6" of DOF - 6" of sharp focus. The background would've still been blurred but the little girl would've been in focus. Shooting at f/1.8 with little distance between you and your subject will have the eyes in focus (if you actually nail your focus) but not much else.