Manual practice.. CC please

Holly · Jun 30, 2006

I dont see the Critique Gallery, and notice more people will see it here... I hope its ok to post it here..

OK ALL The CC you can dish out would be appreciated.. Im learning my manual mode on the Nikon.. Now this is a child who does NOT sit still for the life of me.. F - 5.6 or so SS 100 and ISO is 200... The darker one is my original.. SO I did some PSing to UMPH It up a bit..
I also used 2 different levels to see the difference.. Plus on the forum my pictures look a little darker them my PS for some reason...

HERE are my layouts

UNedited -

2- Sharpened, and added levels

3- Played with levels a bit more

MY Question is why cant I get a PIcture like 3 with out having to edit it etc.??

karissa · Jun 30, 2006

I'm no expert so someone please correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like your lens is soft on focus and you might have needed to force a flash or added a soft source of light hitting him from the front.

Also, when shooting something in motion most people bump up the ISO some however you risk more grain that way. Again, I'm no expert so I hope someone comes back and corrects me if necessary.

Digital Matt · Jun 30, 2006

You need some fill flash, or a reflector for this image, and a warmer white balance. The skin is very cold.

Also, just a note on sharpening. These are way oversharpened, and no amount of sharpening can make something sharp that is not in sharp focus to begin with. Are you using auto focus, or manually focusing?

Holly · Jun 30, 2006

Thanks you two..

Matt this was auto Focus... I Did try reflector and he didnt sit still long enough to keep it in place for a period of time.. IF I used flash it self would it take away the catch lights in his eyes? SO there is no dot ?

Digital Matt · Jul 1, 2006

Fill flash won't take away the catch lights. It will add another small catch. The trick is, you have to have it balance correctly. You should set the shot up as you did, metering on the available light, and just give a small flash to throw light on the face.

fotophia · Jul 1, 2006

the colours are so cold, that would instantly improve the photo. i wish i could give comments on manual but its been that long since ive used it for normal subjects *hangs head in shame* all i guess i could personally say is more light needs to be let in and up the shutter speed to reduce softness? Was he sat in the shadows? because it does look to be a sunny day

karissa · Jul 1, 2006

From my limited experience direct sunlight is pretty darn hard to shoot in. Lighting is very harsh and you end up blowing out to easy. However that does mean fill light of some kind is normally necessary. Just a thought but.. maybe you could try shooting with the sun farther down in the sky. The light should be warmer in color and shadows can make for some fun compositions.

JEazy · Jul 1, 2006

bring the ISO up to 800, shoot at about 1/250 - 1/500, f5.6, and you should get the results of #3 without photoshop.

bigfatbadger · Jul 2, 2006

Holly said:
MY Question is why cant I get a PIcture like 3 with out having to edit it etc.??

Don't worry about using photoshop, digital cameras have different problems to film ones. People used to make corrections in the darkroom, or the lab would make them for you, there's no shame in not getting the perfect shot straight out of camera, very few people do.