Sisters - C&C

[Bo4key]

I haven't posted in a while, and really haven't been shooting much because work has been pretty hectic. I did manage a snapshot or two of my daughters while out for a hike this past weekend and wanted to share


R & E - Sisters by Boaketography, on Flickr

It's a little softer/grainier than I would like but it is cropped from the original to improve the composition. I also had to bring up the exposure in LR as it was underexposed.

 

[Ron Evers]

What little sweeties.

 

[The_Traveler]

OK, they are gorgeous and the picture really captures their spirit.
What is see as a possible improvement is to lower the luminosity of the background so they stand out more and sharpen and warm only the figures for the same reason.
Printed on canvas or watercolor paper this would be a wonderful image.

 

[Bo4key]

OK, they are gorgeous and the picture really captures their spirit.
What is see as a possible improvement is to lower the luminosity of the background so they stand out more and sharpen and warm only the figures for the same reason.
Printed on canvas or watercolor paper this would be a wonderful image.

I like what you've done with it. I did find the brightness of the background to be distracting.

Did you do this in Photoshop or LR? I am working with only LR and am not very proficient with it.

 

[The_Traveler]

I used PS
It's doable in LR, altho not as neatly.

This picture surely put a lie to those who say 'I get it right in the camera.'
There is no 'right in the camera' for this.
Fill Flash and underexposing the background would look, well, like flash.

 

[Bo4key]

Agreed.

We were under the canopy of trees and I didn't even carry my flash with me, I had a reflector but there wasn't any direct sunlight.

 

[Bo4key]

Bump for more input?

 

[Derrel]

Bump for more input?

This kind of lighting condition is very challenging to deal with. When it's done high-line style,like for fashion or catalog work, the photographer often uses massive fill reflectors, held by a two- or even three-person crew, and maybe also uses an overhead scrim/gazebo...major production values...pretty much impractical for a casual walk. (Think "$3,000 + in California Sunbounce gear...")

I dunno...I sometimes do not mind this kind of light handled by taking a close-up reading of the shadowed side of the faces and then letting the background just totally "blow out", to almost white. That works better I think in urban settings, where the background will be buildings, or large, man-made 'things', or even empty space; on park trails and such, the background will often be like it is here--deciduous trees with tons of leaves...

On the opposite end is shooting it "dark"; pegging the highlights properly, but leaving the faces very,very dark, and then in post, applying a lot of digital fill light...that can actually work on the newest, and best sensors....but on older cameras....not a good idea.

If you were to use flash with a d-slr, you'd need high speed synch to handle the brightness of the background, OR otherwise you're stuck using 1/200 second at ISO 100 at f/13-ish....so then the depth of field is deep and the leaves are distracting... HSS (high speed synch in Canon-speak AUTO FP synch in NIkon's language) are a decent option--that is, IF you want to use fill flash, and if you want to make the background DARKER, by "crushing daylight", you could shoot at like f/4.5 at 1/6000 second and make the background appear pretty dark...so dark in fact that you COULD mistake the shot for all-natural lighting...mostly.

Overall though, I think the way you shot this and processed this worked out. again, this kind of wooded, dappled lighting scenario is almost always very tricky to deal with.

 

[Bo4key]

Thanks Derrel, the method I used is the second you mentioned. Lots of fill light in post, I think too much. I can see where a camera with a better dynamic range would produce a better outcome than the T2i.