First Photo shoot..

[NikTyler]

And this is where I'm at.

Not even sure if this is up to even Amateur standards.. But as stated, My first shoot.

This was taken with a Canon 7D, two Soft Boxes and a EF 28-135 lens.

f/11
1/15
ISO -500




Rip this apart please, I would love some advice on making my shoots better.

Btw, This is my first post on this site. I am loving the community here and look forward to these forums.

[aishuclickz]

WOW.. love it.. the play of colors.. the black and blue and purple.. looks like a halloween shot

[MrJones]

first of all, great strong colors.
now for the technical stuff:
- why shoot at f/11 with shutter speed as low as 1/15? open your aperture to max and speed up your shutter speed.
- your white balance is off, you can see the magenta taking over the photo.
- the right side is a bit dark for my taste, a reflector could have helped you with that and help you with better separation from the background.
- it's a bit underexposed but that could be fixed in PP.

it's a great first try, don't feel bad about it.. we are here to learn.
we always make mistakes, even after years of taking photos.. the important thing is to learn from those mistakes and avoid them next time.

[NikTyler]

Originally Posted by MrJones

first of all, great strong colors.
now for the technical stuff:
- why shoot at f/11 with shutter speed as low as 1/15? open your aperture to max and speed up your shutter speed.
- your white balance is off, you can see the magenta taking over the photo.
- the right side is a bit dark for my taste, a reflector could have helped you with that and help you with better separation from the background.
- it's a bit underexposed but that could be fixed in PP.

it's a great first try, don't feel bad about it.. we are here to learn.
we always make mistakes, even after years of taking photos.. the important thing is to learn from those mistakes and avoid them next time.

This is why I'm here! Awesome advice I'll try it.
I used that aperture speed.. well.. basically I was told when doing a shoot the "best" aperture was f/11, and to always work around setting. I will definitely try that aperture next time around. I'll white balance it when I edit it again, I did take a shot with a white balance card.
Thanks for the advice!

[hilhi2005]

First of all, I think this is a great shot, esp for a first time as you said.
I deff agree that if you opened up the aperture some, you could speed up the shutter, and also lower the ISO, reducing noise.
Also, with the right side of the face being as dark as it is, you may want to crop the image down some, but that is really more personal taste.

[BigFuzzy]

I think for a first effort, it's quite good.

Technically, I agree, it's a bit underexposed. And I agree with the WB being off. Both easily corrected in PP.

Sylistically, I typically don't like the "head floating on a black background" look. Where were the softboxes set up? The reason I ask is that I think you would have had a stronger image if you'd set up one to the side (as you did) and the other light (not in a softbox) as a back/rim light to help the subject pop a bit from the background. Imagine a nice rim light around the right (her left) side of her head. It would have also helped bring out some of the awesome color in her hair.

I like the off center composition, but because of the boring black (to me), it loses a bit of impact.

In the end, I would have set up one softbox to camera left at about 45degrees and a bit up. Just enough to get a little light into her left eye. If needed a reflector camera right to bounce just a bit of light onto the left side of her face and then used your second light as as a back/rim/hair light to make her pop out a bit from the background.

Keep it up!

[oldwolf]

I won't rehash what the others said about adjusting your exposure.

I like the image very much. I especially love the vibrant colors and this is a great first shot.

I think if you threw in a reflector to feather some light on her left side then it would add more to the shot. Just enough light to hit her hair and bow.

[NikTyler]

I am really loving this feedback. I'm shooting again in a few days, I will take all of this into account. I also ordered a Hand-Held Disc Reflector off of Amazon. I agree that would have helped a lot on her shirt / bow tie area.