my first portrait in natural light, C&C please!

[Miti]

Hi everyone!
This my first try taking pics in natural light. I shot in jpeg not raw by mistake. I don't know very well my my camera yet so I always forget something while shooting...
I came too late to photography I guess.
Canon 550D, EF 100L macro, f/2.8, iso 100, at 17h PM.

 

[cgipson1]

Looks like WB is off.. he is very yellow.

 

[Miti]

Yes it looks that way to me, too. But is there any pos to be changed in pp if it's a jpeg pic?

 

[Trever1t]

You can't alter WB if you shot it a.jpg but you can color correct. WB/Tone is definitely off, otherwise it's ok but why a square crop?

 

[Miti]

why it's a square crop? Well,....I really don't know....

 

[KmH]

View attachment 19753

The pose has his shoulders a little to square to the camera.

The kicker lighting from the back left and right works well, but his facial mask is a bit under exposed.

The white balance looks off a bit since his skin tone looks to have a decidedly yellow cast to it.

I did an edit by adjusting the white balance (ACR temp/tone sliders), added some exposure to his face, a mid-tone contrast boost, some eye work, some local sharpening, a crop to get rid of some background distractions-

 

[Miti]

Thanks KmH. That's a lot better. In order to have his facial mask correct exposed should I have to use a reflector or flash through an umbrella?

 

[Trever1t]

Or just expose for the face

 

[KmH]

As Trever1t alludes to, you can expose for the face by using Spot metering mode. Partial, or Center-Weighted metering mode might also be used.

I suspect your camera was set to what Canon calls Evaluative metering mode, and Nikon calls Matrix metering mode.

Yes a reflector and/or fill flash would have helped. A key concern is getting light to the eyes, but not so much light that the person starts to squint. An issue I usually have with using available light is a lack of directional control and strength.
To help prevent squinting or blinking, manually controlled flash is the way to go. TTL flash has to use pre-flashes which often causes people to blink.

 

[Miti]

Thanks KmH for your precious counsels. I didn't get it what Trever1t was alluding to. Yes my camera was set to Evaluative mode.
With regard to WB what would you advise a newbie like me: use a grey card or correcting in post? I mean which is easier as well...

 

[rokvi]

use a grey card or correcting in post?

If your going to shoot jpeg again then use the card. If you shoot raw you could do either.

 

[Miti]

I'm definitely going to shoot RAW...