Family Session C&C

[gsgary]

1 doesn't look soft to me at all and I love the pose I don't like the super stiff rigid poses. I want the kids to display their personality and this DEFINITELY shows her personality

2 is slightly soft

3 is the worst

4 isn't soft it just has motion blur

That is what I see from my barely trained eye.........

Now if I don't want to use studio lighting which I don't at this point...........what can I use for settings if I need a fast shutter speed? Will reflectors help? I am using the crappy kit lens 18-55 mm..........I am intending to buy the 50mm 2.8......will that give me a lot more room to work with?

Using studio flash will stop any movement, but you can use a higher ISO, reflectors or large poly boards used in construction, your lens will work if you get the 50F1.8 and start using larger apertures you will let more light in but your focus has to be better because of shallower DOF

 

[RedWylder]

On my computer I don't like the guy's skin tone- it's a little too purple (maybe cause screen isn't calibrated). The others look ok as far as skin goes. The bottow few with the blue scratchy background, I'm drawn a little too much to the background-looks like it's not quite flat and has a bit of glare or something. I like the suitcase props and the posing on it. Cute!

 

[Derrel]

1) Very CUTE!!!! Needs to have the girl centered a bit more, so crop off a littl of the left hand side.
2) Man and wife: framed way too tightly, especially at the top. Is the background not big enough to give them some space? I suspect it might be too small to use for a M&W portrait.
3)Two sisters--decent pose, but it looks blurry,esp. on their faces...too slow of a shutter speed it looks like to me...and their heads are too fr over into the right hand side of the image.
4) little sister...again, too far over to the right hand side; this needs to have some of the left edged cropped away.

 

[vtf]

I think the top one is sharp because you can make out each hair as it comes off the edge of the dog. The second looks soft because the hair on the back of her head looks blurred and each hair cannot be made out.

When the image is in raw editing I blow it up to 100% to verify the sharpness. It may look sharp when a smaller image but at 100% will tell you alot.

 

[Christie Photo]

I find the sharpness in all to be acceptable. These are portraits, not medical photos or product advertising. Of course print size and viewing distance will come into play on the softer ones.

I like your lighting and find the poses to be interesting and fun... and believable.

Aside for the very good advice Derrel gave about framing, the one thing buggin' me is that white baseboard moulding. It's gotta go. And I wish your set was just a bit deeper.

NICE stuff!

-Pete



And, oh.... I really do like your lighting. Stick with it. A bit of refining and careful shooting are worth the results you're getting. Bump the ISO up to 400.

 

[Geaux]

Cute setup and poses, but like others have said, soft focus/motion blur on them all. In a portrait, I always look for sharpness in the eye and none of these have that.