Coffee House Portrait

[T.pickett]

While sitting at a coffee house with my sister discussing ideas for my new photo blog she got a call and I snapped this portrait of her. I'm not big on photographing people but I thought I'd get some feedback on the composition of this one. I know the DoF is a little narrow, causing the hand to be slightly blurry but I only had a few seconds to capture this and didn't put much thought to settings.



EXIF data:
Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
Apeture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: -1ev (this wasn't intentional so it was corrected in processing)
Flash: Off, did not fire

[AmberTillman]

Wow, 42 views and no response yet.... kinda sucks.

Composition wise, I think it is ok. According to the rule of thirds, her glasses and the tips of her blurry hand are the focal point, and that definitely isn't the most interesting part of the photo. I would say it is more her expression. like hmmmm....

white balance is a little off. Indoors? A bit tungsten.... but that can be corrected....unless you were going for that.

she is also quite soft.

Thanks for sharing!

[AmberTillman]

yep, took another look. the sharpest point (and it is quite sharp) is the left side of her glasses frame. were you using the nifty fifty 1.8? if so, putting it on 2.2 or 2.8 may have made a huge difference in focus and sharpness on her whilst still getting the blurry background...

[LoveDSLR]

My two cents:

Here's one sample crop using Golden triangle:


The obvious mistake is not preparing your gear to shoot on demand or double check the camera's setting. Thus having the -1 EV that robbed an EV in shutter speed.

If it was taken with the Nikon D5000 then you can try shooting at ISO 1600 or 3200 instead of 800. Unless you are very sure of your steady hands at 1/30, try higher shutter speed. That's why I set my D300 auto ISO max at 3200 with min shutter speed at 1/60.

Either select a focusing point over the subject's eye or focus with the center focusing point and slight shift your body (not the camera) on the same plane to recompose.

[T.pickett]

Originally Posted by AmberTillman

yep, took another look. the sharpest point (and it is quite sharp) is the left side of her glasses frame. were you using the nifty fifty 1.8? if so, putting it on 2.2 or 2.8 may have made a huge difference in focus and sharpness on her whilst still getting the blurry background...

Yeah, I was using my 50 prime and I know the smaller aperture would have brought her into better focus... As for the coloring I'm still learning how to correct things like that in post.

Originally Posted by LoveDSLR

My two cents:
The obvious mistake is not preparing your gear to shoot on demand or double check the camera's setting. Thus having the -1 EV that robbed an EV in shutter speed.

If it was taken with the Nikon D5000 then you can try shooting at ISO 1600 or 3200 instead of 800. Unless you are very sure of your steady hands at 1/30, try higher shutter speed. That's why I set my D300 auto ISO max at 3200 with min shutter speed at 1/60.

Either select a focusing point over the subject's eye or focus with the center focusing point and slight shift your body (not the camera) on the same plane to recompose.

I like the crop, I knew there would be a better way to do it but I wasn't sure how. Now I know though, thanks. I knew the settings would be all wrong for shooting indoors, I had been outside shooting landscapes, but like I said there wasn't really time to get set correctly because she was just answering the phone to say "I'll call you back." But I do have fairly steady hands, lots of practice with another kind of shooting.

Thanks for all the feedback, I think I need to keep working on my portrait taking skills even if people aren't my first choice of subject.