Most common PP for portraits?

For portraiture, I tend to meter off of the subject's face and let the rest of the image fall where it may.

But you're getting into religion now. I think you've now got your camera dialed in to a more reasonable exposure. I would even try to get down into ISO 100 now and set a baseline for portraiture... try for ISO 100, but 200 is acceptable in a pinch. Go for minimum 1/125 shutter speed or faster. Play with aperture as needed to get correct exposure and desired depth of field. Then dial lights up or down as needed to achieve those settings.

I think you'll find an ISO 100 RAW image with good flash lighting and a fast shutter speed will be a joy to work with in post processing. Now compare this last test image you did with some of the older ones from the beginning of the thread. Look at the full res versions in your PC. Doesn't that look better to you?
 
Hm, if you're new to raw are you sure you're not just processing the RAWs incorrectly?

Also, my experience with this was fleeting... but we did have some issues where external flashes did NOT sync well wirelessly with a more modern Nikon SB600... our resulting pictures were dark. We wound up eventually wiring everything up and things came out perfectly.

This information is PURELY anecdoctal and not worth a heck of a lot on it's own, but it may be interesting info to help support one postulate or another on what is happening.
 
Hm, if you're new to raw are you sure you're not just processing the RAWs incorrectly?

Also, my experience with this was fleeting... but we did have some issues where external flashes did NOT sync well wirelessly with a more modern Nikon SB600... our resulting pictures were dark. We wound up eventually wiring everything up and things came out perfectly.

This information is PURELY anecdoctal and not worth a heck of a lot on it's own, but it may be interesting info to help support one postulate or another on what is happening.

I'm not purposely doing anything to the RAW files besides converting them to JPEG with the Nikon software, so I wouldn't think it would butcher them too badly. You're right about the syncing, but I've found that it's only a problem in Auto for some reason. As you see in the picture I provided of the setup, both flashes are firing.

I have to read up on syncing and get more comfortable with it.
 
There we go-ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/320 and f/8. That seems more realistic, right?

12_08_2008_5317.jpg


12_08_2008_5318.jpg


Now I need to figure out what the heck metering is, because the background we will use for portraits won't be that ugly couch, and people are always talking about what my camera is, "metering off of.." If we use a dark or black background, it will throw everything off, right?

The first one looks really good! Her face seems a tad underexposed in the second.
 
For portraiture, I tend to meter off of the subject's face and let the rest of the image fall where it may.

But you're getting into religion now. I think you've now got your camera dialed in to a more reasonable exposure. I would even try to get down into ISO 100 now and set a baseline for portraiture... try for ISO 100, but 200 is acceptable in a pinch. Go for minimum 1/125 shutter speed or faster. Play with aperture as needed to get correct exposure and desired depth of field. Then dial lights up or down as needed to achieve those settings.

I think you'll find an ISO 100 RAW image with good flash lighting and a fast shutter speed will be a joy to work with in post processing. Now compare this last test image you did with some of the older ones from the beginning of the thread. Look at the full res versions in your PC. Doesn't that look better to you?

Lowest ISO setting on the D50 is 200.
 
I'm not purposely doing anything to the RAW files besides converting them to JPEG with the Nikon software, so I wouldn't think it would butcher them too badly. You're right about the syncing, but I've found that it's only a problem in Auto for some reason. As you see in the picture I provided of the setup, both flashes are firing.

I have to read up on syncing and get more comfortable with it.

You may want to check that- batch (or even untouched) processing of RAWs basically completely defeats the purpose of taking pictures in RAW. You might as well take them in JPEG at that point.

Open up one of these and simple adjust the temperature and tweak the exposre and brightness a bit and see what you get.
 
:lmao:

You don't have small children around, do you?

He's very lucky to get the images he's gotten.

Actually I have about a years worth of experience photographing children of all ages. There's no luck involved, it's all hard work, distraction and bribery. :lol:
 
Now... the pictures is much better. Should we bring out the champagne?;)
 
I played with the exposure of the first one, and now her hair looks brown...

-5318.jpg
 
It looks like you've wound up desaturating it a little bit, which I think is what took the red out of her hair.
 
Any chance you could put the raw file up for us to play with? I'm betting the issue is more in the raw translation than anything, but there's no way to tell without playing with it.
 
BTW, I think your latest attempt is getting really close! Looks good for the most part.
 
How do I post the RAW? It's over 5 Meg in size.
 
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