Engagements - First Real Shoot

[MelodySoul]

So I had my first real shoot last weekend, doing some engagement photos for good friends of mine. It was a very bright day so I did the best I could with the lighting challenges. C&C welcome.

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[tirediron]

Nice work; C&C per req:

1. Nice pose, but somewhat under-exposed. Judging by the light on the trees you had a bright background. Some diffuse fill light about about knee-level aimed up would have evened up the exposure nicely. I'd suggest a slight levels and curves, and perhaps a wee WB adjustment.

2. Nice idea, but I think it would have been better to have it held out further from the body; there's a bit of cuff which is slightly distracting to image right.

3. Nice pose, great expressions, but your conversion is overly mid-tone rich. There's lots of grey, but precious little black or white. Again I'm thinking the bright sky played with your exposure. When shooting this kind of one-chance only scene, it's always best to shoot a grey card for exposure reference and a white one for WB reference (You can use a grey for both, but I prefer to shoot one of each).

4. Nicely done, just a touch under-exposed.

5. Good.

6. Again good pose, but see comments for #3 re exposure and conversion.

Overall, you've got some really nice poses, but your images are suffering from exposure issues. As I mentioned frequent use of white & grey cards will help minimize many of these problems, as will the use of fill-lights and/or reflectors to even up exposures. Also try and avoid metering areas with bright highlights (#1) as these tend to play havoc with matrix/wide area metering.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

 

[MelodySoul]

Thanks for the advice. I actually did a few using reflectors but it was my first time using them and I'm not sure they came out so great either
(maybe too bright?). I even brought my grey card too but totally forgot to use it (like I said first time out...lol). I will work on the B&W conversions. Thanks again!

 

[DRATOM]

I like #4. Nicely composed image. Maybe slightly under exposed. Probably due to the sunlight coming through the top of the archway onto the leaves. Were you in matrix metering? A little PP work could help a lot of these images.

I think tirediron got it covered. No need for me to repeat.

Thanks for sharing, and keep at it.

Its a small image so not much can be done. This is a simple quick edit. Hope it helps

 

[MelodySoul]

Were you in matrix metering?

Erm...I'm embarassed to admit that I don't know what that means. :blushing:

I really like the edit, what did you do?

 

[DRATOM]

Erm...I'm embarassed to admit that I don't know what that means. :blushing:

I really like the edit, what did you do?

Matrix metering, AKA evaluative metering, AKA honeycomb metering, AKA segment metering, AKA multi-zone metering is where the camera measures the light intensity in multiple parts of the scene, and then takes that information to find the settings the camera believes will be the best exposure. Basically gives you an average exposure for the entire image.

What I did was take your image and make a few layers with different intensities and combined them to try and bring out a few of the better features of the image.

Keep shooting! Keep posting! Ansel Adams said, "The first 10,000 are just practice." I have about 9,500 more to go my self