What do you think of this photo?

elizpage · Jul 22, 2014

This is my first attempt at anything similar to "studio" lighting (it was basically a huge wrinkly white sheet spread across my friend's apartment with an incadescent house lamp pointed at the subject) with an overhead as well.

We also had lighting coming from a window.

Let me know what you think. It's obviously a very amateur photo and it was very hard to replicate real life. I had a lot of problems during the shoot.

Derrel · Jul 23, 2014

Skin tone looks pretty yellowish. Showing a fair amount of cleavage. The far eyelash looks a bit weird in a portrait, seen just sort of peeking out behind her nose. Overall not a very refined pose.

tecboy · Jul 23, 2014

Try custom white balance. It is easy that way.

Pejacre · Jul 23, 2014

I struggled to get natural skin tone out of this and I'm sure others can do better - setting white balance from the background gave very blue results so I reduced yellow and orange saturation in HSL instead - probably overdid it. I did notice while tweaking that the model has lush red hair, which hasn't been reproduced in your version which looks dark brown. Maybe a second fill light behind your right shoulder would have helped?

Braineack · Jul 23, 2014

$0.02:

• Don't shoot portraits at f/1.8 - You missed the focus completely here.
• If you're going to shoot that sort of profile, either show none of the far eye, or all of it. - Like Derrel mentioned, that far eye looks weird.
• WB looks odd

I think I'd rather have seen this with just light from the window; there's nothing interesting about what you did with the extra lights.

astroNikon · Jul 23, 2014

you should use f/5.6 for general portraits .. at least that's what I've learned. Yeah, I still like to go down to f/2.8 because I can, and fiddling with 1.8 is fun too.

I recall seeing a photo here of a NSFW portrait at f/1.4 and the position of the model was leaning towards the camera over a fence. And being NSFW she wasn't fully dressed. But the f/1.4 and angle of the model's face was done perfectly to get the face and hair in focus and fade away the further back you got. Fantastic artistic shot.

So I understand the reasoning for shooting wide open. But those shots should be for specific circumstances.
I don't see it working in this shot.

Also at 1/100 you may want to push up your ISO to get a slightly faster shutter. Your ISO was 125.
I always try now, with flash gear to only shoot people at 1/200, and any people shots without flash I always stay above 1/125 and use ISO for that.
Unless I'm trying to get movement

Designer · Jul 23, 2014

elizpage said:
This is my first attempt at anything similar to "studio" lighting (it was basically a huge wrinkly white sheet spread across my friend's apartment with an incadescent house lamp pointed at the subject) with an overhead as well.

We also had lighting coming from a window.

Let me know what you think. It's obviously a very amateur photo and it was very hard to replicate real life. I had a lot of problems during the shoot.

The yellow cast is the incandescent lighting color, which can be compensated for at the time of shooting, but with two different colors of light, (window) it's going to be nearly impossible to find the correct white balance in the camera.

In low light shooting opening the aperture is one way, but not the only way to get proper exposure. Your ISO was only 125, which could have been set higher. Also, as Braineack wrote, your wide aperture gave you a very narrow DOF.

Designer · Jul 23, 2014

Here's a one-click edit:

astroNikon · Jul 23, 2014

One more click

which after looking at it .. brought out the hair details, but washed out the skin a bit. that could be fixed too.

sm4him · Jul 23, 2014

I think the main issues have been covered pretty well here. Mixing the two types of lighting has really thrown the WB off, the DOF is pretty thin, and the pose is really not that flattering.

Derrel mentioned it shows a lot of cleavage. Personally, I'd go further than that and say:
1. I'm not a big fan of chopping off a photo in the middle of a person's bosom, any more than chopping off their fingers or toes. It's awkward looking.
2. Admittedly, my vision isn't great. But either there is a shadow being cast on her right breast that kinda LOOKS like her nipple, or her cleavage is so exposed it's actually showing her nipple. Maybe that very slightly NSFW look is what you were going for, but I don't get the impression that it is--I get more of an impression that you just didn't notice how that looks.

I also find the raised arm and chopped-off elbow in the background distracting. And that eyelash thing, but that's already been covered.

Get her to look just a little more toward the camera, fix the mixed-lighting issue, and work on posing. But hey, you DID get a nice catchlight in her eye!

KmH · Jul 23, 2014

Designer said:
elizpage said:

This is my first attempt at anything similar to "studio" lighting (it was basically a huge wrinkly white sheet spread across my friend's apartment with an incadescent house lamp pointed at the subject) with an overhead as well.

We also had lighting coming from a window.

Let me know what you think. It's obviously a very amateur photo and it was very hard to replicate real life. I had a lot of problems during the shoot.

Click to expand...

but with two different colors of light, (window) it's going to be nearly impossible to find the correct white balance in the camera.

Mixed lighting (incandescent/window (indirect sunlight)) cannot be fully corrected for both light source color temperatures post process either.

The point of focus is on her hair that is closest to the camera.
Many still relatively new to photography have difficulty controlling focus using fast lens wide open apertures mainly because they do not understand that DoF is partly in front of, and partly behind the point of focus (PoF).
The distribution of the DoF will vary by lens focal length, lens aperture, and PoF distance from about 50/50 to 35/65.
Understanding Depth of Field in Photography

elizpage · Jul 23, 2014

sm4him said:
I think the main issues have been covered pretty well here. Mixing the two types of lighting has really thrown the WB off, the DOF is pretty thin, and the pose is really not that flattering.

Derrel mentioned it shows a lot of cleavage. Personally, I'd go further than that and say:
1. I'm not a big fan of chopping off a photo in the middle of a person's bosom, any more than chopping off their fingers or toes. It's awkward looking.
2. Admittedly, my vision isn't great. But either there is a shadow being cast on her right breast that kinda LOOKS like her nipple, or her cleavage is so exposed it's actually showing her nipple. Maybe that very slightly NSFW look is what you were going for, but I don't get the impression that it is--I get more of an impression that you just didn't notice how that looks.

I also find the raised arm and chopped-off elbow in the background distracting. And that eyelash thing, but that's already been covered.

Get her to look just a little more toward the camera, fix the mixed-lighting issue, and work on posing. But hey, you DID get a nice catchlight in her eye!

Yeah, I didn't really do well per say, but the important thing is that I tried, this was a shoot I did for fun and not for cash (other than the gas money to get there that she offered), and that I learned from my mistakes

JacaRanda · Jul 23, 2014

Hello Elizpage. You may find this helpful Where is Your Subject Looking and Why Does it Matter? - Digital Photography School.

That link is tip 15 of 22 located here Portrait Photography Tips - Digital Photography School.

Don't get overwhelmed with the information. Perhaps jot down or print out a few to implement into each of your future shoots (including c&c from fellow TPF'ers).