Hope and patience

[Eimantas]

Hello, here is my shot. I would like to hear more about exposure and composition. What is your opinion? If you have some other remarks, please feel free to write



Sony DSLR-A390
f/4.5
1/5 sec
ISO 400

[karen_s]

Composition is pretty nice. Although the main focus is centered (I tend to look at the eyes first and they are almost centered), you have some good lines leading the eye through the image and they help keep it from being too static.

The exposure looks like it was a balancing act. You have very dark areas and very light areas to work with and that can be challenging. You did well to keep the bright areas from blowing out and still keep some detail in the darks. If you could have gotten more light on his body or if you could dodge it a bit in post, it might help. That said, it doesn't much bother me as you got pretty good exposure on his face and that's the most important part.

Couple of other suggestions:

You might be try getting an even lower perspective. I often lay on my belly in an attempt to get to my dogs eye level. If they are standing, then kneeling on my end works pretty well, but when they are laying down, well, I get lower.

I think you got away with it but 1/5 shutter speed is very slow for photographing any living breathing being, even if you use a tripod. You might sacrifice a little ISO or if you have the room to widen the aperture, you could try that too.

Overall, pretty nice shot. It really captures a mood and that your did very well.

[Steve_S]

I agree with what karen said. One other thing that would have helped is a little fill flash or reflected light in the shadow areas. Not so much as to kill the mood of the shot, but just a little to lift the shadow details.

[Eimantas]

Thank you for a detailed comments! Talking about flash, I have only the standard one (integrated) and so far I haven't learned to use it properly.

[karen_s]

I am pretty clueless about flash so I apologize for not using proper terminology here ... see if your camera allows you to + and - the flash strength. If you can, you can back it off quite a bit and use it as a bit of a fill. It's not ideal but will work ok in a pinch while you save for the off camera flash. You could also look into making some DIY diffusers for it. I bought one made by Gary Fong but a friend made a couple of really cool ones out of old milk jugs and they worked well. As far as reflectors, a large piece of white foam core or white poster board works great.