Little Ballerina - CC welcome

Gallery29

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This was done using all natural light, no flash, on a 50D using a 50mm at f/1.8.

Overall, I'm happy with the results. Wish her hair was a little bit less "fly-away," and not 100% thrilled with the way the background is blurred, but can't put my finger on it.

CC is welcome. Thanks in advance!

Dance1copy.jpg
 
Thanks! I'm going to play around with the high-pass trick in Photoshop and see what I can do to bring out the eyes a bit, maybe! :)
 
I like it! As was said, a little sharper would be nicer. I think you could best do that by stopping down a bit. She has beautiful eyes!

EDIT: Oh yeah, I just looked at the EXIF. You could have easily shot at f/6.3 or so, there was no need to shoot at 1/1600sec at 50mm on a stationary subject.
 
The reason I set it for f/1.8 is because I wanted a really blurred background. Wouldn't f/6.3 have resulted in less blur? Thanks for the info! Appreciate all tips :)
 
People look at things that are bright and things that are in focus.
The flower on her head is really sharp, the material in the lower left is realtively bright (as is her arm)
Note that her eyes, the crucial and most important part of a portrait are at the midline.

I suggest you fix those things and tighten up the composition and direct the viewers' eyes better.

$Dancegridl.webp$Dance1copylll.webp
 
The reason I set it for f/1.8 is because I wanted a really blurred background. Wouldn't f/6.3 have resulted in less blur? Thanks for the info! Appreciate all tips :)

Yes and no. A blurry background is determined by a combination of aperture and the distance between you, your subject, and the background. The closer you are (or closer you are zoomed into) to your subject, and the farther away the background is, the more blur you will have. So, to achieve a blurry background at a smaller aperture, bring your subject farther away from the background. Using a zoom lens at a high zoom will also do this, but since you shot with a prime, you obviously can't do that.

In your shot, the DOF is so shallow even parts of her head are blurry, so stopping down wouldn't have hurt your background any. The biggest difference is her whole head would be in focus. The end goal, though, is getting in your lens' sweet spot to get those tack sharp shots.
 
I sharpened her face a little and added a hair more saturation to the eyes. What do you think? BTW, my wife and daughter fell in love with her. She's super cute! :-)

2kg7mg.jpg
 
Nice pic. On the 50 mm f 1.8, even setting the aperture at 2.0 instead of 1.8 leads to better sharpness without taking away the background blur.
 
What a beautiful little girl. :)
 

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