Rebecca Jayne - Outdoors

[ChrisAdval]

Critique anything you want, but what I know I'm weak and trying to do better is the sharpness level. I'm having a very hard time to getting very sharp around the face/head/eyes area and keeping the backdrop/foreground silky smooth. What aperture would you recommend shooting to blow out the foreground but would keep a human subject's face or/and eyes very sharp?


Rebecca Jayne Outdoors 03 by Chris Adval, on Flickr
- EXIF for this photo


Here's her set - Rebecca Jayne - a set on Flickr
Please critique the ones that are outside

[Niresangwa]

Why do you want to 'blow out' the foreground? You realize that's a function of exposure, and aperture choice only contributes to this? Personally I find your DoF to be fine.... as for sharpening, that's an issue for PP...i've not looked at the larger version, but it seems ok.

Rather I think your issue lies with he fact that your model is underexposed, and her skin tone looks to cool and even a little green.

The pose, well, I don't enjoy it... not only is she side-on, but she's not looking at the camera, which feels like she's completely disconnected to the viewer... profiles are hard to pull off, even as a facial study, never mind a 3/4 shot like this.

You also chopped the end of her finger off..

[RLucas]

I am with Steve on all points given. You have much stronger poses in the set on flickr than this one. The pose itself is more distracting than the dof.

The only other real issue I see on the set, especially the outdoors shots is that your white balance is all over the place. Some too warm, and some too cool. A mix like that makes them look incongruent. Second, they are all underexposed. If you underexpose and try to push in post, then you almost always lose some sharpness, even if your focus is dead on.

If you are looking for real creamy bokeh, that is usually a function of the lens itself. Some lenses are better at rendering that than others. As stated before, the dof on most of these look pretty good to me.

[ChrisAdval]

Thanks a lot guys that was extremely helpful!

On the pose I would experimenting with semi-candid poses. When I say sharp I mean from the focus, since I shot in a wide aperture the sharpness isn't a whole lot or has a hard time focusing on the eyes which is always my goal. I don't know why, but for some reason I like to underexpose many of my shots to get it a bit more natural feel in the lighting... I'm such an amateur in outdoor portraits. As for the crop, yes I agree, I didn't notice that until now since I sometimes put too much focus on the face at times and forget the rest and I'm the type of photographer who hates bad crops too... I know I haven't done many or any bad crops in my more recent shoots since noticing my bad cropping issues. I already learned a lot since I shot these 2 months ago.

I totally agree with you Lucas, consistency is vital, I'll have to go back and look at them again if they are consistent (which I honestly thought they were).

Again thanks a lot that was helpful!