Teen Portrait (c&c)

[YoMoe]

Please let me know how I can improve for next time. This was my first time shooting portraits in manual. I was using natural light from a large window and my external flash sb600 in the hot shoe with a gary fong light diffuser bounced off the ceiling. I'd love any and all suggestions. Posing, lighting, settings, PP ... anything.

1. f5.6 1/250 iso 1600 (18-105mm lens)

2. I switched lenses and lowered the iso. It was set from a previous shoot.
f2.2 1/250 ISO 200

3. f1.8 1/250 ISO 200

 

[ziggo]

I like the combination of skin and background colour in the last one. Can't give you any advice myself as I am a noob too.

 

[mwcfarms]

First one looks a tiny bit soft. Im not a huge fan of angled shots but I like the angle here.
2nd is better. You lost a tiny bit of detail in the hoodies whites.
I like third the best for color range. Its warm and looks like you almost caught her before she laughed.

This is just my opinion and I'm still learning as well.

 

[cameramike]

first two seem too soft, third one, you got it right on the eyes but it QUICKLY falls off by the cheek. Second one may have been a better pose to pull out more, show more of her knee and leg. keep shooting though looking good

 

[YoMoe]

I don't know why they are soft. I had the focus set to Dynamic Area AF - maybe Single Area AF would have been a better choice? The other choice is Auto Area. I have a Nikon d300. What focusing mode do you think is best for portraits? Here is another version of the second pose that is not as tight. The rest of the set are here.

4.

 

[oldmacman]

I don't know why they are soft. I had the focus set to Dynamic Area AF - maybe Single Area AF would have been a better choice? The other choice is Auto Area. I have a Nikon d300. What focusing mode do you think is best for portraits? Here is another version of the second pose that is not as tight. The rest of the set are here.

4.

She is a beautiful young girl. For some reason I am seeing everything as overly red today; I may need to calibrate my monitor. Any way, here is an edit that, imo, lightens the skin and is a better exposure. The lighting could sculpt her features a little more by not having the same levels of light on both sides of the face. If you only have one flash you can fill shadows with natural light, a reflector or subtract light from one side by having something dark that will keep light from bouncing into the face.

 

[cameramike]

oldmacman I agree, her skin looks a little too red for my liking. I do like the full pose better though then the crop. As well as some more dramatic lighting (just getting a good shadow and highlight on the face) would add an entirely different dimension to the image.

 

[Corvphotography]

the first two look OOF or "soft"

 

[YoMoe]

She is a beautiful young girl. For some reason I am seeing everything as overly red today; I may need to calibrate my monitor. Any way, here is an edit that, imo, lightens the skin and is a better exposure. The lighting could sculpt her features a little more by not having the same levels of light on both sides of the face. If you only have one flash you can fill shadows with natural light, a reflector or subtract light from one side by having something dark that will keep light from bouncing into the face.

Thank you so much for taking the time to edit the shot. It does look much better. Right now I only have one flash. I went to the store to get an umbrella yesterday and found out that my flash will not sync without a cable which was really expensive so I'll have to wait a bit to move to off camera flash. I definitely struggle with the skin tones (among other things). My monitor is a laptop and it is not calibrated so that is part of the problem. I am shooting jpg images. I may try shooting raw. Thanks for all your help.

 

[YoMoe]

Any way, here is an edit that, imo, lightens the skin and is a better exposure.

If it is not too much trouble can you explain how you lightened the skin.

 

[burgo]

I agree the first 2 do look OOF. The third one is best. But overall I think your flash is just too harsh and you need to dial it down a bit. I think that is why they look a bit too soft. You can see it nicely in the edited image by oldmacman that with the colour cast removed the harshness of your flash. Make sure her eyes are where you focus as well.

Good effort though

 

[oldmacman]

Thank you so much for taking the time to edit the shot. It does look much better. Right now I only have one flash. I went to the store to get an umbrella yesterday and found out that my flash will not sync without a cable which was really expensive so I'll have to wait a bit to move to off camera flash. I definitely struggle with the skin tones (among other things). My monitor is a laptop and it is not calibrated so that is part of the problem. I am shooting jpg images. I may try shooting raw. Thanks for all your help.

No problem. I enjoy editing and practicing. I know what you mean about working on a laptop. I have done some edits on mine and then viewed them on a calibrated monitor and wondered what the heck I was thinking. There are a couple of options for your off camera flash that shouldn't be too expensive and it does depend on the features of your flash. If you simply want to trigger the flash and control the output manually, you can get cheap flash triggers for about $25 on ebay.

 

[oldmacman]

Any way, here is an edit that, imo, lightens the skin and is a better exposure.

If it is not too much trouble can you explain how you lightened the skin.

In PS:
- reduced red saturation
- increased red luminance (both adjustments are mad in Hue and Saturation)
- duplicated the layer and changed the blend mode to screen with opacity at about 70%
- added another layer and sharpened for the hair, eyes and clothes and masked it out for the skin.
- I brought the image back into LR3 tweaked the overall saturation up, vibrance up and clarity down (I had over-sharpened)
- I made the whole pic a little cooler

I think seeing detail in the hair is a nice contrast to her youthful skin. I didn't really try to correct the white area of her sweater. I like your pose and she has a natural comfort with posing, so I find your composition very pleasing.

 

[YoMoe]

In PS:
- reduced red saturation
- increased red luminance (both adjustments are mad in Hue and Saturation)
- duplicated the layer and changed the blend mode to screen with opacity at about 70%
- added another layer and sharpened for the hair, eyes and clothes and masked it out for the skin.
- I brought the image back into LR3 tweaked the overall saturation up, vibrance up and clarity down (I had over-sharpened)
- I made the whole pic a little cooler

I think seeing detail in the hair is a nice contrast to her youthful skin. I didn't really try to correct the white area of her sweater. I like your pose and she has a natural comfort with posing, so I find your composition very pleasing.

The first part I can easily manage. I've never created a second layer for this type of editing and I've never used blend mode. I am going to have to look into it.

I looked up flash trigger for the sb600 flash and the first thing that popped up was Ken Rockwell and he gives detailed instructions on how to sync the sb-600 and the d300. OMG I'm doing a happy dance. I was at my local camera store - it as a small specialty store and two of the professional photographers there said the sb-600 would not auto sync. I thought it was going to cost me a chunk of change to get the flash off camera but now all I need is a stand and maybe a softbox or umbrella. Woo hoo!!!

oldmacman I cannot thank you enough. :hug::

 

[skieur]

You have a bad habit of "brain amputation" which is what pros say for cutting off the top of a person's head. That is a definite NO,NO even in television work, let alone photography.

skieur