First photo shoot, Logan (noob)

[kimlasher]

Being brave here, and posting my favorite photograph from a mini-session that is not my OWN child. Any and all opinions and suggestions on lighting, cropping, settings of this particular pic are welcome.

Thanks,
Kim

[istephallard]

He's a handsome lil guy. I'm a super duper beginner as well but I hope that this is helpful critique/feedback. It seems that he's a little washed out and perhaps his face isn't as well focused as you may want. You could attempted to correct the washed out look this in post processing (also something I am still in the "beginners" stage in. I use a program called Aperture and it allows me to tweek the exposure and to add polarization and has a brush that can help sharpen area's that are not as well focused as I may have liked. You could try adjusting one or both of those settings to see if you get some more contrast to help bring out his facial features a little more.

The back lighting is always fun but also can be tricky. I always like to bring out the eyes in portraits especially with children. You could try turning him around to have him face the window next time. Or using a reflector (if you are like me you may just have a camera but no fancy gear you can use thick white paper or a mirror to help reflect more light on the face. Facing the lighting (if it's not to bright) can add that extra sparkle to the eyes.I've always struggled with indoor lighting (lighting and exposure in general) personally. In the future perhaps kicking the aperture to a higher number would help with the overexposure and with getting more of his face in focus.

Hope these are helpful for your photo now and future photos.

[windrider86]

Its much easier for us if you post your photo here for us. That way we dont have to flip back and forth. Also include your exif info. Knowing your camera setting will make a difference in the critiques you get.
I'm including yours for this one:Camera Nikon D5100
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture f/1.8
Focal Length 35 mm
ISO Speed 2000
Exposure Bias +2/3 EV
Flash No Flash
X-Resolution 300 dpi
Y-Resolution 300 dpi

[kimlasher]

Thanks, Windrider. Added the photo too.

[kimlasher]

I agree, istephallard. I should have used some kind of reflector to bring out a nice highlight in his eyes. Thanks for the post processing tips. I'll try them out. Appreciate the feedback.

[Hill Country Hack]

Cute kid!

For me the capture is to monochromatic. Light background, light chair, light hair, fair skin. Your subject kinda gets lost in all the lightness. I understand your wanting to use the exisiting backlight, but I believe the subject would pop out a whole lot more if you had used a dark background. Something as easy as a dark sheet. You can use some post production software to change the background. I'm just starting to learn my Lightroom3 and have yet to get to that part yet.

You had plenty of light and therefore may have tried to use the on camera flash to get that sparkle in the eyes. Another option would be some sort of front lighting also. A lamp, flashlight, homemade reflector.

All in all a good photo, but with just a few tweeks it could be much better.

[Doug Sundseth]

Composition: The blown out window in the upper left of the frame is pretty distracting to me. I'd recommend composing to keep that out of the final shot. The right side of the chair is cropped a bit awkwardly; if you were to crop a bit tighter (so you aren't clipping just an inch of the chair or so) or a bit more loosely (so you show the full width of the chair, I think that would work better. In general, since the environment is so simple, I think I'd prefer a significantly tighter crop on your subject.

Posing: The subject's eyes look odd to me and his expression seems a bit disconnected. Sometimes you need to shotgun the same shot several times to pick a really nice expression, especially from kids. Otherwise, I like the pose. It's not exactly the same pose I've seen a thousand times and it works for me.

Lighting: The back lighting is interesting, but I think it's too hot relative to the fill from the front. I'd recommend adding fill light and reducing your exposure significantly.

Post: I'd like to see a significant increase in midtone contrast to pull out the boy's face more. (This could also be done with lighting at the time of capture, as noted above.) I might add a subtle post-crop vignette to focus attention on the subject a bit more, but it needs to be subtle enough not to draw attention to itself.

Camera setup: You're not overexposed according to the histogram, but the photo feels overexposed. Partly that's the things that Hill Country Hack noted and partly it's the blown out parts of the frame and the hot side highlights. With more fill light you can reduce the exposure to knock down the highlights while maintaining the same lighting scheme.

For a posed photo, I wouldn't recommend ISO 2000. You can clean the noise up in post, but there's seldom a reason to go that fast. Also, unless the boy is even more frenetic than most boys, 1/400 sec is significantly faster than you really need. 1/60 is usually fast enough for any posed portrait, which would give you much more room to work with the other parts of the exposure triangle.

FWIW, I'd probably also try to close the aperture down to f/2.8 or so for better sharpness across the frame, but I might have to sacrifice that for exposure and a lower ISO.

All that is my impression of course. If you have a reason to do something else or if you're trying for a specific look, you should do what you need to get there, not to the place I'm suggesting. Hope my critique helps.

[kimlasher]

Thanks so much, everyone. I really appreciate all the comments and critique. I have already learned a lot here!

Kim