Taking Photos For Compositing in Photoshop

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Hey everyone i just have a quick question what are some recommend settings for taking Compositing pictures. i would like to take some photos of my little sister throwing her pillow but i would like to have the pillow and herself in focus. can someone please help me out with this matter i have a d800 with a Tamron 24-70 f2.8 VC lens. what is the best F-STOP to shoot in and what type of focus mode should i be using to make this possible thank you everyone for all your help.
 
"How do I know water is wet?" "How much does Mt. Everest weigh?" -- These questions are just as answerable as the one you have asked. Without knowing all the details of your environment, and being able to see the same final image you are imagining, it's virtually impossible to recommend "settings".

A critical lesson for every photographer to learn, ESPECIALLY those who are in the field professionally, is that "settings" are situation and desire dependant. For any given exposure, there are many options of SS, Aperture, ISO, etc which will produce an appropriately exposed image, however there is likely only one which will produce a correctly exposed image, and the settings that produced that image for you, won't be the same ones that would produce it for me, because my circumstances would be different.

That said... in general, you're going to need a moderately fast shutter-speed, I would start at 1/500; you're going to need an aperture approrpiate to desired DoF, consult tables based on your circumstances; as for focus mode, I would use AF-S, however AF-C might be equally appropriate. It just depends on which you're more comfortable with.
 
i will take some shots today once i get home and i will post it on there also the other day i took a picture of me holding a iphone i was in focus but the iphone that i had in my hand was not in focus how is it possible to get both me and the iphone in focus should i boost up my Fstop.
 
Just to add to what @tirediron wrote, there needs to be answers to the following:

Are you compositing her and the cushion into a completely new scene or compositing the pillow into the scene with her?
How is she throwing the pillow? Straight up into the air? To the side? Towards the viewer?
If you are dropping her onto a new scene, are you planning on having that out of focus or in focus?
What are you shooting her against? A black, white, grey backdrop?
Do you have strobes and light modifiers?
If so, how many?
Do you have any masking software like Topaz Labs Remask?
 
i do have the topaz labs collection i will be taking a picture of her acting like she is hitting me with the pillow i will then take the image into photoshop and replace her in a new sence i have a cheetah flash that i have on a tripod for lighting. i just dont know how i can make her and the pillow in focus when i take the shot i will be taking the shot on a grey background since it is easier to remove when the editing process.
 
Shoot wide angle, shoot from a distance and stop the lens down. If you have an iPhone, go to the app store and look for a depth of field Calculator. I use the Nikonians one. It's free and comes in handy on occasions. All you need is a depth of field deep enough to ensure your sister and the pillow are in focus from back to front. This shouldn't require a depth of field deeper than about 1 meter in my estimation. Use the DOF calculator to work out what focal length you will be using to fit your sister in the frame. The distance from the sensor she will be and then try different apertures to give you different depth of field.

Then all you need to do is expose your sister correctly at a high enough shutter speed or preferably with off camera flash to really get a crisp result.
 
thank you so much AKUK i will try this once i get home i will download the app right now on my iphone alot of people i have seen shoot f8 or f9 i was wondering if that is the fstop i should be shooting in
 
No problem. As for shooting f/8 or something similar, it depends upon the distance to subject and the focal length of the lens. Both of these affect the depth of field, as does aperture. Have a play around with that DOF calculator and entering a distance of say 2m. Enter the aperture f/8. Now select different focal lengths 28mm, 50mm, 70mm, respectively. What you will see is the DOF getting shallower despite the distance and aperture remaining the same.

The wider you shoot, the deeper the DOF is automatically. The longer you shoot, the shallower. This is why it's so easy to get a nice out of focus background with something like a 70-200mm at full zoom, than a 24-70mm at it's widest. My article "OCD For DOF" explains about this a little.
 
I'm so confused.. Do you just want to composite your sister into an image because she is out of focus in the original or do you want to composite whether or not you can get her in focus?
 
w.y photo i snapped the image and she was out of focus but i found out i was using a short f stop and it needs to be higher in order to get her eyes and everything else in focus.
 
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w.y photo i snapped the image and she was out of focus but i found out i was using a short f stop and it needs to be higher in order to get her eyes and everything else in focus.

I think you mean either a Large Aperture, low F/stop, or short shutter speed.. You can't have a short Fstop.
 
No need to be sorry, just helping you out with terminology. Hope the shoot goes well!
 

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