Creepy stuff & Partial Metering & too many Qs

[CherylL1]

Photos from my sister & her bf's display. He made good use of her old wedding dress. Thought the subjects would be good practice for me.

All shots were Av mode & partial metering. This was my method: metered on the face, locked, focused on the eye & set aperature, recompose, shot. Is this the correct way? It was overcast. What would have been a better way to take the photos for the conditions?

In ACR upped the recovery on some, upped the contrast, and vibrance. Sharpened about 45%. One tutorial on ACR said to sharpen 100% shooting in Raw and another said to watch not to oversharpen and check radius & mask if needed by using the modifier key. Any advice?

I did go back and re-edited a few adding more contrast, upped the saturation, and upped the exposure. I normally do not touch the saturation slider only the vibrance.

1. 40mm f2.8 the first edit



IMG_0545 by Cheryl3001, on Flickr



2. 2nd edit upped the saturation



IMG_0545Sat by Cheryl3001, on Flickr


3. 18-135 f10.0 the 2nd edit upped the contrast, saturation, & exposure. She was spinning in the wind and waited until she stopped and a gust of wind puffed up her dress. This was the darkest of all the photos and surprised how ACR exposure worked.


IMG_0566SatConExp by Cheryl3001, on Flickr


4. 40mm f2.8 the 2nd edit upped the exposure, recovery, saturation, contrast



IMG_0548SatConExpRec by Cheryl3001, on Flickr

There are more in this set on Flickr and the 1st edits of #3 & 4. Thanks for taking the time to look and help. Trying to work out of the snapshot phase.

 

[MLeeK]

If you are shooting in aperture priority you set your aperture according to what you need. Usually that's what you need to be in focus or depth of field. Then you'd leave your aperture alone and let the camera set the shutter speed through the shoot. The only time you'd change aperture is if you needed more or less in focus.
Why were you setting your aperture for each shot?
Why were you shooting at f/10 on the one shot?

I'd like to see the SOOC images with absolutely nothing done to them at all. That will help us to help you more with the camera work.

As for your editing they look fine.
Sharpening is a multi-phased thing. If you are shooting in raw you should do a raw sharpening which is usually somewhere between 50 and 70% on a portrait, but the important part is in the other numbers too. You need to zoom to 100% in ACR and then you can hold down the alt key while clicking and dragging the sliders. That will show you what you are affecting in the image.
You are missing the power of raw editing totally by not using the parametric and point curve. That's where you will get your snap to your images. As for what to do-move the sliders and play with them. See what they do.

 

[CherylL1]

If you are shooting in aperture priority you set your aperture according to what you need. Usually that's what you need to be in focus or depth of field. Then you'd leave your aperture alone and let the camera set the shutter speed through the shoot. The only time you'd change aperture is if you needed more or less in focus.
Why were you setting your aperture for each shot?
Why were you shooting at f/10 on the one shot?

I'd like to see the SOOC images with absolutely nothing done to them at all. That will help us to help you more with the camera work.

As for your editing they look fine.
Sharpening is a multi-phased thing. If you are shooting in raw you should do a raw sharpening which is usually somewhere between 50 and 70% on a portrait, but the important part is in the other numbers too. You need to zoom to 100% in ACR and then you can hold down the alt key while clicking and dragging the sliders. That will show you what you are affecting in the image.
You are missing the power of raw editing totally by not using the parametric and point curve. That's where you will get your snap to your images. As for what to do-move the sliders and play with them. See what they do.

I was basing my aperture on what I thought I needed to be in focus and also for experimenting DOF. I thought I would need f10 on the one shot to have all of her in focus. What would you recommend for this shot? Since I was focusing on her face before recomposing, did I also need the extra step of partial metering & lock? Really trying to wrap my head around all of this.

Thanks for the tip on the parametric & point curve panel. I have totally bi-passed this panel. Found an online tut and will reread one of my PS books.

Here is one of the photos SOOC:


IMG_0545SOOC by Cheryl3001, on Flickr

Thanks for your help, much appreciated!

 

[2WheelPhoto]

HARSH light will bring out more drama when it comes to Halloween subjects

 

[MLeeK]

If you are shooting in aperture priority you set your aperture according to what you need. Usually that's what you need to be in focus or depth of field. Then you'd leave your aperture alone and let the camera set the shutter speed through the shoot. The only time you'd change aperture is if you needed more or less in focus.
Why were you setting your aperture for each shot?
Why were you shooting at f/10 on the one shot?

I'd like to see the SOOC images with absolutely nothing done to them at all. That will help us to help you more with the camera work.

As for your editing they look fine.
Sharpening is a multi-phased thing. If you are shooting in raw you should do a raw sharpening which is usually somewhere between 50 and 70% on a portrait, but the important part is in the other numbers too. You need to zoom to 100% in ACR and then you can hold down the alt key while clicking and dragging the sliders. That will show you what you are affecting in the image.
You are missing the power of raw editing totally by not using the parametric and point curve. That's where you will get your snap to your images. As for what to do-move the sliders and play with them. See what they do.

I was basing my aperture on what I thought I needed to be in focus and also for experimenting DOF. I thought I would need f10 on the one shot to have all of her in focus. What would you recommend for this shot? Since I was focusing on her face before recomposing, did I also need the extra step of partial metering & lock? Really trying to wrap my head around all of this.

Thanks for the tip on the parametric & point curve panel. I have totally bi-passed this panel. Found an online tut and will reread one of my PS books.

Here is one of the photos SOOC:


IMG_0545SOOC by Cheryl3001, on Flickr

Thanks for your help, much appreciated!

You aren't understanding depth of field properly. Depth of field is from front to back. It is the area from front to back that is in sharp focus. Imagine it as a wall. Everything within the wall will be in acceptable focus. Everything before or after the wall will be dropping off and is not acceptably sharp focus. It has nothing to do with up and down.
WIth your T4i at 27mm at f/10 and 10 feet away from the subject you have 42.9FEET of acceptable focus. You could have had the back of that house in focus.
A good rule of thumb that has no bearing whatsoever on anything in reality, but seems to work is that your f/ should be equal to the number of subjects in your image.
If I have more than one person I start at about 3.5 and I know that somewhere around f/11 I am going to be able to get everyone in focus and don't need to go up anymore.

 

[4meandthem]

If you get the opportunity try shooting at night with a long exposure and wash the subjects with light from flashlights covered in gels or a couple layers of colored cellophane.The hung bride would look wicked and add some color to her. Red/green/yellow would really do it. You can get clear colored wrapping paper at Michaels for cheap.I would also try shooting her from a lower angle looking up.Wash the gallows with light too as well as the wall.Get help with the flashlights if you need more lights.I would start at a 30 second exposure f22 and 200 iso and see what that looks like.Asdjust from there.

I would spend a little more time on placement of the lights for the skulls on the gate before shooting again. Maybe a 20 second exposure and play with one color light.Yellow maybe.

Last pic I would shoot from farther away and remove the plastic tie. Try and shoot from an angle that has his eyes focused on you (same with bride). the wires would probably disappear at night on long exposure as long as you dont hit them directly for long with the flashlights.Try one color on the spider and 2 on the guy.Highlight his axe and face alot.

Looks like fun.

 

[CherylL1]

Thanks for the DOF explanation MLeek. Guess I was trying to get the back of the house.

 

[CherylL1]

If you get the opportunity try shooting at night with a long exposure and wash the subjects with light from flashlights covered in gels or a couple layers of colored cellophane.The hung bride would look wicked and add some color to her. Red/green/yellow would really do it. You can get clear colored wrapping paper at Michaels for cheap.I would also try shooting her from a lower angle looking up.Wash the gallows with light too as well as the wall.Get help with the flashlights if you need more lights.I would start at a 30 second exposure f22 and 200 iso and see what that looks like.Asdjust from there.

I would spend a little more time on placement of the lights for the skulls on the gate before shooting again. Maybe a 20 second exposure and play with one color light.Yellow maybe.

Last pic I would shoot from farther away and remove the plastic tie. Try and shoot from an angle that has his eyes focused on you (same with bride). the wires would probably disappear at night on long exposure as long as you dont hit them directly for long with the flashlights.Try one color on the spider and 2 on the guy.Highlight his axe and face alot.

Looks like fun.

Thanks for the idea & the how to achieve this. May try this out. He does have lights, but haven't seen it at night yet. And he has added a few more props.


And thanks 2WheelPhoto for the harsh light suggestion. Guess this is one of those times that shadows on a face is a good thing?