My youngest boy

[EOBeav]

Hi everybody, just wanted your general thoughts about composition, editing, and anything else you can think of that may need some attention in this shot. This is my youngest son, Tanner, who is going into 9th grade next year. Taken at a poplar tree farm near where we live, mid evening. Edited in UFRaw, with more fine tuning in GIMP. Thanks in advance for your comments and suggestions.



EXIF:
Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Exposure 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 140 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Lens: Canon L 70-200mm f/4

Interesting that my focal length (140) was higher than my exposure time fraction (100), so this shot should have turned out a lot blurrier than it did.

[Kate Howells]

Hi Rick

I like the over all look of the image. Just a couple of things I notice : There is some BG noise, maybe if you run a NR filter, this should help.
You have some sharpening halos. Composition wise, I would have given more space on the LHS. There is quite a bit of dead space to the right of the image.

Still a lovely shot

[ricklumpas]

It is a nice photo. Pretty well exposed. I like the contrast of his dress against the light hues of the trees behind him. the DoF of your lens was enough to blur the background. The camera level was effective to flatter the subject. Nice job on this.

I would have taken the shot with his eyes on the upper left of the rule of 3rds intersection. And I would have the twigs on the lower right removed /moved/ cut ( they lead eyes to them too).

[kstiltne]

Looks like most of the points have been covered...but, to be blunt, that shirt is making him look fat...first thing I noticed. Otherwise, a few composition tweaks and it's a really nice shot.

[jpitz31]

Originally Posted by EOBeav

Interesting that my focal length (140) was higher than my exposure time fraction (100), so this shot should have turned out a lot blurrier than it did.

Nice exposure, Nice composition. Try to stay away from the high ISO, The noise in the background is due to the high ISO. Get a tripod, then you could lower the ISO and go lower on the shutter speed. Look at doing some off camera flash and the use of reflectors to balance the ambient light with flash. You could under expose the background by a stop and fill your subject with the flash and reflectors.

Do the lighting tutorial 101 at strobist.com.

Nice pic

Thanks

Joe

[EOBeav]

Thanks for the helpful comments, everybody.

Unfortunately, my Canon 70-200mm L f/4 requires me to bump up the ISO in darker settings like this. It killed me to go to ISO 400 on this shot. In retrospect, I should have used my Canon 50mm f/1.4, as it does superb in lower light settings. But, I wanted a reason to use the L. :-) If I continue to do more portrait photography, I can see that I'll need to invest in some lighting equipment.