Where to focus on full body shots?

[NicolaB]

I always focus on the eyes and then move the camera to frame the picture. This hasn't worked in this instance. Is that what I should have done for a full body shot?

I have since learnt that I should not use lower that 1/125 for the 85mm lense, so I recognise that was my first mistake. (Therefore ISO should have gone to 800 I assume?)

Any other comments through to PP welcome......



Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

[RLucas]

I don't see a problem with the focus. She is a little underexposed, and the saturation is a little high. It looks like you may have had some mixed lighting too. What type of lighting was in the room? It may make it a little difficult to get the color balance just right, but not bad. If you shot in RAW, adjust the exposure up about 1/2 stop. Yes, this will blow the background out, but it create a nice backlit effect. It really is a good image to start with, and just needs a small amount of tweaking.
If you would like, I can have a play with it, and show you what I mean. Unless you can understand my garbled writing.

[Barbara554]

Lovely shot, I think. I agree it is a little underexposed but that can be fixed in post.

[SusanH1970]

For full body shots, it's easier to really nail focus if you toggle your focus points. But I agree with Luke, the focus doesn't appear off, but it is definitely underexposed and your white balance is off. Very cute baby!

[MrJones]

someone once told me that in portraits and people shots in general always focus on the eyes since that's where the observer will always look. eye contact.
I find it true and thus - a great advice.

in this case i do agree - you're in focus

[NicolaB]

Thank you all!

You are right about the lighting. The window is far picture left and I put on the light picture right to get more light in the room. Would it have been better to leave this off and put up the ISO?



Feel free to have a play. Is this better? My eye is not yet trained in the PP department - but this forum is really helping in that too.

Toggle focus points? Is that all over focus rather than fixed focus?

[MrJones]

love it! great photo!

[RLucas]

Your edit looks great! The mixed lighting does give a little trouble though. If you look around her nose, and the sole of her foot, you will see the yellow cast that I was talking about, and it still looks a little too saturated to me, especially in the red areas. I usually deal with it by creating a duplicate layer, desaturate the layer, and changing the screen mode to screen. I then adjust the opacity of the layer to taste. I still wasn't able to get rid of all the yellow. It may take some more layers and masking, but this will give you the idea. This is just my taste though. You may like your images a little more warm than I do.

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by NicolaB

Toggle focus points? Is that all over focus rather than fixed focus?

Toggling your focus point means to choose which AF point in the viewfinder you want to use, rather than using the center one and focus/recomposing.

Using the light + window light will mess with your white balance. They're different color temps. Putting the baby much closer to the window and using a reflector will give you great results.

Certainly not a bad photo at all, with a few tweaks it could be a stunning portrait.

[photofe804]

I love the shot, although I do agree it may be just a tad too warm. That is a really cute baby, with beautiful eyes. The focus does seem good, even on the larger view on flickr. If you do see a focus issue when looking at a larger file, I would think that may have something to do with focusing on the eyes and then recomposing the shot. At wide apertures you get such shallow depth of field that recomposing may cause your focus to end up somewhere other than the eyes. You can avoid that by toggling your focus points instead, as was mentioned. Again, that doesn't seem to be a problem from what I see.