Please C&C my photo, thanks ahead of time for looking.

[daverica]

i took this pic yesterday of my son. I took it in Manual mode, the F4.5, 1/320, not sure of the ISO. I took this in B&W from my camera setting. I have read its better to take in color and then change to b&W in photo shop, but Im new at this. I am using a Nikon D5100. Any comments or critiques? Thanks ahead of time.

 

[480sparky]

He's just a tad too far to the left.

I prefer to shoot in color, then do the conversion in post. That way, I make the decisions about the process, not some engineer in a far-off land who really doesn't care about my work.

 

[daverica]

Thank you. I was trying to apply the rule of thirds. Maybe I did not apply correctly.

 

[fjrabon]

rule of thirds isn't as big of a deal for head and shoulders portraits.

 

[TagoFabic]

Maybe add a bit of contrast also? Agree, better shoot in color then PP it in B&W later. You may need the colored version in the future.

Tago Fabic
Photography + Blog | Tago Fabic

 

[Terenas1986]

Thank you. I was trying to apply the rule of thirds. Maybe I did not apply correctly.

I never apply the rule of thirds horizontally in a vertical shot... only vertically if needed. But you don't necessarily need it anyway.. you're an artist... you need to learn the rules and then bend them.

 

[Jaemie]

Nice. He's cute.

 

[greybeard]

Here is my take on the rule of 1/3ds for this photo. I placed his left eye on the 1/3 point. What do you think?

 

[Designer]

Dave; you can take the picture in whatever format you prefer, and later produce a monochrome copy right in the camera. So let's say your are shooting NEF+JPG, and you see the color JPG on the screen, and you think that it would make a nice monochrome image. Just go the the edit menu, and make your B&W (or sepia, or cyanotone) in the camera. Of course these copies will be JPGs, just like the full color version, but if you are shooting in NEF+JPG, you can still mess around with the NEF file in whatever PP software that you have. So have fun with it.