Family beach portrait - crop?

[mandyatm]

This was originally a landscape crop and I changed it. Is it too close? This shoot was quite a challenge, any other comments welcome.

50mm
f/5.6
1/200 sec
ISO 100

[peeperita]

what a handsome family, mandy.....love the exposure.....

the crop does feel a little cramped......could you post the original crop?.....

peeper

[SusanH1970]

Agreed with Peeper on the crop, but their faces look a tad underexposed to me. Also the horizon needs to be straightened a touch. I wish I could see a little light in their eyes, too.

GREAT job posing them!

[zona5101]

Really nice work especially in such demanding lighting conditions! Agreed with Susan & Peeper, a couple of tweeks and you're golden!

[Matthew_Scullion]

Firstly, I think it's a lovely shot and a very handsome family!

Crop wise, agree with the others. Do with exposure too, think the faces look a bit dark. If you're just after "how to improve this particular capture in post prod" feedback then my comments would be, as you say, wider crop, and lift up the subject people's exposure a bit, esp on the skin but also on the clothes.

Would it be worth saturating the sky a bit more too? Get it a bit bluer?

If I were taking the shot again I think I would suggest:

- perhaps a slightly narrower DoF, as the waves behind are quite rough and so a little distracting
- more flash (or more apeture)
- cross light the flash... the sun is coming from rear camera left I think. Flash from front camera right would give nice pop.

This is all perfect world stuff though, great shot!

[mandyatm]

Thanks for the comments! Here is the original crop. I think it looks okay but her leg bugs me and I blew out some parts of the water, so I was trying to cut it out. The shadow in front also bugs me. Maybe I should have tried a square crop...


This was so hard for me. I had the best of intentions and even took my strobe out there and shot through a white muslin background to get light on their faces. The wind was TERRIBLE and it took so many big rocks to hold the background down, and I had to bury my background stand so it wouldn't fly away. After this took so long, I missed the sunrise and the sky was completely white behind them (not just overexposed, it was white anyway). So, I took pictures of the horizon looking down the other side of the beach and replaced the sky. If I would have faced them that way, the sun would have been in their faces. Also, since it was so bright, I couldn't see my screen on my camera. I couldn't tell if they were underexposed or just tan! The first test shots I took of just the boy were actually the correct settings, but I changed them because I couldn't see what I was looking at, arghhh!

I am glad you mentioned bluer sky Matthew because I was worried that it might already look fake. I will try to increase the exposure on them. My light was to the right though. At least the sheet was at a 45 degree angle to them, the wind kept blowing my light around so who knows, haha.

So, I got an overexposed background and underexposed subjects anyway! I did make some adjustments in RAW. I also tinted the water because Galveston water is poo brown!

[zona5101]

I can imaging how frustrating and nerve-racking it must have been to deal with all of that! Considering the adversities you faced, you did well.

[SusanH1970]

I hope you don't mind, I had a play. I can take it down if you want.

Opened in ACR and bumped the exposure, then used the recovery slider to bring back the blown highlights. Opened in CS2 and cropped, added a slight warming filter, increased the saturation of only the blues, then did a soft light layer at 25% opacity. It's not perfect (working with a low res image) but I just wanted to show you one way to brighten it up and make it pop a little more.

[Aleix]

Couldn't agree more with SusanH1970's crop.

Excellent picture by the way. And nice family!

[mandyatm]

Thanks Zona, I really appreciate your suggestion of shooting through the cloth on my other post in the lighting section. I think it worked out better than if I had used my small umbrella - I just should have gotten there about 45 minutes earlier than I did!

Thanks Susan, I don't mind at all. I definitely see how mine was underexposed compared to your version. I was afraid that lightening it too much would create noise, but it looks better.

I am glad that the family was easy to work with and they are very adorable!