My very first portrait shoot

[RL.]

CC hard please I am trying to get better! I applied all the technical knowledge I've learned in the last 2 months I've been shooting to this. Shooting people is harder than I thought! lol

All pictures were taken with my 50d+50mm, no flash only ambient lighting. I am getting a flash setup within a few weeks though!

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6

 

[Robin Usagani]

I see a lot of noise on the 3rd one.. HOw did you shoot these (what mode or what setting)? Perhaps it is better if you post this in the Beginner forum.

 

[RL.]

I see a lot of noise on the 3rd one.. HOw did you shoot these (what mode or what setting)? Perhaps it is better if you post this in the Beginner forum.

The grainy/noisy look you see is the compression from linking the images from my facebook. The high res images look fine in that regard.

I shot most if not all of these in manual...I think I might've tried shtter priority once but didn't like it. Setting usually at a=1.8-5.6, ss+iso varied a lot. perhaps it is better if instead of telling me to post on the beginner forum, tell me what makes these pictures so UN worthy of being in here, I am all ears.

 

[AverageJoe]

Thanks for posting, here are my thoughts:

1. Would have liked to have seen more of the subjects head, the shirt is completely black/underexposed.

2. Crop of the head is still a bit much.

3. A bit noisy (as someone noted above, you could upload to photobucket and then link?), look at the background trees, they come in a bit noisy.

4. This is the best of the bunch IMO, nice pose, good exposure, interesting background. It could use maybe a tad bit more depth of field (notice the show is out of the depth of field.)

5. This one is okay, I like what you were going for, but the cubes floating in the sky are a little odd, I'm guessing it was a sign or something. Some detail is lost in the face because of the flair.

6. Again, I think the crop of the face/head is a bit much, would rather see the top of the subjects head than the black shirt.

Overall: I like the fact that you are using natural light, I think you definitely chose the best time to shoot these. Watch the cropping when composing your shots, try not to cut off body parts etc.

What did you lock the ISO at? On a 50D, I'd probably set it at 400 or 640 if that's an option. What aperture did you shoot these at? I'd like to see a range of f2.8 or f4 for the full body shots and maybe f2.0 for the close ups. What post processing was done? Did you shoot in RAW?

 

[Early]

To begin with, nice lens!

As far as flash goes, you didn't need it here. Some of them are soft, and would have cropped some differently to see what I could come up with. My only issue is with the lack of color saturation.

Being a film guy, the noise doesn't bother me.

 

[subscuck]

^ I agree. They're washed out looking. Opened in RAW and added some saturation, recovered some highlites then opened in PS, slight curves adjustment and some smart sharpen. As always, small file so PPing is limited...

 

[RL.]

Thanks for posting, here are my thoughts:

1. Would have liked to have seen more of the subjects head, the shirt is completely black/underexposed.

2. Crop of the head is still a bit much.

3. A bit noisy (as someone noted above, you could upload to photobucket and then link?), look at the background trees, they come in a bit noisy.

4. This is the best of the bunch IMO, nice pose, good exposure, interesting background. It could use maybe a tad bit more depth of field (notice the show is out of the depth of field.)

5. This one is okay, I like what you were going for, but the cubes floating in the sky are a little odd, I'm guessing it was a sign or something. Some detail is lost in the face because of the flair.

6. Again, I think the crop of the face/head is a bit much, would rather see the top of the subjects head than the black shirt.

Overall: I like the fact that you are using natural light, I think you definitely chose the best time to shoot these. Watch the cropping when composing your shots, try not to cut off body parts etc.

What did you lock the ISO at? On a 50D, I'd probably set it at 400 or 640 if that's an option. What aperture did you shoot these at? I'd like to see a range of f2.8 or f4 for the full body shots and maybe f2.0 for the close ups. What post processing was done? Did you shoot in RAW?

Thanks this is what I was looking for! I used iso 100-800. What is the best iso to use shooting at the time I did(around 7-8pm)? You're right I should've used more dpeth of field for the full body shots, know I know. And yes I shoot everything in raw!

As far as post processing goes, I use ACR and do the basics like exposure, recovery, contrast, etc...then I open in photoshop and might do levels, selective saturation(eyes) selective sharpening(eyes), getting ride of wrinkles/blemishes with the spot healing brush. Idk why but I felt that desaturating the images worked for this set..but I could be wrong.

To begin with, nice lens!

As far as flash goes, you didn't need it here. Some of them are soft, and would have cropped some differently to see what I could come up with. My only issue is with the lack of color saturation.

Being a film guy, the noise doesn't bother me.

Thanks, you're right I should've left more room for cropping, I shold've also kept some in full color instead of desaturating them.

^ I agree. They're washed out looking. Opened in RAW and added some saturation, recovered some highlites then opened in PS, slight curves adjustment and some smart sharpen. As always, small file so PPing is limited...

I still have the raw files so I might go back and play with them some more, that looks good^^^

 

[subscuck]

I still have the raw files so I might go back and play with them some more, that looks good^^^

Thanks. I would start over from scratch in ACR. Set everything back to default. I thought they were a tad overexposed at first, but your comment about desaturating these made me realize they aren't. On a technical level you hit everything about right. Or at least I'm assuming, since I don't have the RAW files to look at. Just a little basic PPing is all they need. Where they're at right now looks like they were shot with the kit lens. I used to have the nifty, so I know it performs better than that.

Reworked this one as well, hope you don't mind. Needed a little more work, but I like this shot, it's a nice golden hour pic. Cropped to get rid of Average Joe's floating cubes, they were bothering me too, and you really don't need all that headroom anyway. My only little niggle now would be to maybe clone out the light on the right side of his head.