First attempt at portraits.

[AdrianC]

As mentioned before, some of these are fairly grainy. You could have used a lower ISO.

You said you used ISO 400, F/3.5 and 1/100th in your first picture.

ISO 200, F/3.5 and 1/50th would have resulted in a similar, but less grainy picture. You're shooting at a 50mm focal length so a 1/50sec exposure time should work.

 

[Ratman667]

Dont be afraid of a blown out sky, it can be useful sometimes

Sometimes, yes, but when you aren't going for it, it is quite annoying.

They all look underexposed to me. Get a flash or atleast use the pop up with flash comp dialed way down to give just a little fill.

I did use a fill on a few of them, but unfortunately, she was blinking in all of those...

Slightly in #1

I will see what I can do.

 

[kundalini]

Dont be afraid of a blown out sky, it can be useful sometimes

Please explain because my eyes constantly revert to the upper right hand corner of your example rather than the face that is supposed to be on display. In my mind, this is an error.

You said you used ISO 400, F/3.5 and 1/100th in your first picture.

ISO 200, F/3.5 and 1/50th would have resulted in a similar, but less grainy picture. You're shooting at a 50mm focal length so a 1/50sec exposure time should work.

From my limited reading, the D3000 is pretty much on par with my old D80 with regard to ISO performance. North of ISO800, it sucks big fat hairy ones. On the other side, ISO400 shouldn't be that much of a stretch. Perhaps the shutter speed of 1/100s was what the OP needed/wanted. On certain days I can hand hold to 1/15s, but on others I NEED 1/100s for various reasons even if I'm using a 20mm or a 35mm or a 50mm lens.
It doesn't matter because my hands command the day. I have problems holding my camera sometimes. It's a ***** getting old.

 

[Ratman667]

As mentioned before, some of these are fairly grainy. You could have used a lower ISO.

You said you used ISO 400, F/3.5 and 1/100th in your first picture.

ISO 200, F/3.5 and 1/50th would have resulted in a similar, but less grainy picture. You're shooting at a 50mm focal length so a 1/50sec exposure time should work.

I will keep that in mind next time I go out. I just tested out those settings outside and 1/50th is doable. I had the camera set to aperture priority, so I had no control over the shutter speed. If I click it over to manual, I can control all of that. I will take a tripod just to be on the safe side.

From my limited reading, the D3000 is pretty much on par with my old D80 with regard to ISO performance. North of ISO800, it sucks big fat hairy ones. On the other side, ISO400 shouldn't be that much of a stretch. Perhaps the shutter speed of 1/100s was what the OP needed/wanted. On certain days I can hand hold to 1/15s, but on others I NEED 1/100s for various reasons even if I'm using a 20mm or a 35mm or a 50mm lens.
It doesn't matter because my hands command the day. I have problems holding my camera sometimes. It's a ***** getting old.

High ISO on the D3000 does suck pretty bad.

Like I said, I had no control over the shutter speed at the time. I will try a slower shutter next time though.

Here are the three that were in question of having green tinted hair:

All I did was adjust the white balance a little. I didn't think that small of an adjustment could make such a big difference. I do realize that the second one still has a slight green tint on the top of her head, but I couldn't edit it out without making her face too red. For now, I am happy with these three. I have learned a lot from this and will apply it in the future.

Someone said they looked underexposed, so I increased the exposure a little as well. I am going to buy a flash as soon as I can afford one.

I appreciate everyone's input so far and if you have any more constructive criticism, please speak up.

 

[misstwinklytoes]

1 on this last set is my fav.

(BTW Assuming those highlights aren't natural, they were made with GREEN dye, just so you know. :lmao: It's not really green, but that's what it's called when you're mixing it in the bowl before foiling it! And whoever did it did a decent job of keeping it natural looking with sporadic placement. Yay beauty school filling my head with useless knowledge that I can share with others!)

 

[misstwinklytoes]

I took a stab at bringing her out a bit more in the last one. The file wasn't that big so it's a bit noisy. Let me know if you want me to take this down.

 

[Ratman667]

It's fine. No need to take it down.

It looks like I am still too cautious with my editing. Minus the grain, I like your edit. What did you do?

 

[misstwinklytoes]

Ummmm....LOL

Wow, I took a nap and I can't remember. I have the memory of a gnat.

I upped the brightness (which gave the grain)and the contrast a tad, then I had to clone the background of the original because I blew out the background on the new layer with the brightness increase. I played with the color levels a little bit just messing with them until they "looked right".

I'm sorry, I should have recorded what I changed them to, but I'm a blonde too! >.<

The most useful thing I can say about PP is that you just play around, doing that will allow you to look at a picture and visualize what you'd like to do to it to make it look like you want to. If you don't like it, don't save it, or do like I do (because I don't want to accidentally hit the save button) and open and copy paste as new image that way you -can't- accidentally save it over the original. Play, have fun, go extreme just for the fun of it.