Getting better??

[eharty]

Hi,

This is my third attempt and I hope that I'm starting to show some improvement. Please share your thoughts on the picture and what I can change change next time round.

ISO 200
F2.8
Shutter speed 1/200

[rcarpenter3d]

I like the pic. I think the shot may be just a touch overexposed, you can tell by how the clouds and her shirt are a little washed out. You may also want to adjust color saturation in post processing software to make the blue sky more blue and the green grass more green. Overall its a good shot.

[MrJones]

something is really really weird here...
you say you shot it at f/2.8 (and flickr claims the same) but the background is so sharp.. at 2.8 you can barely keep your subject fully sharp.
your focal length according to flickr is 4.9mm.. another weird thing

[ryancellan]

Originally Posted by MrJones

something is really really weird here...
you say you shot it at f/2.8 (and flickr claims the same) but the background is so sharp.. at 2.8 you can barely keep your subject fully sharp.
your focal length according to flickr is 4.9mm.. another weird thing

Yup. agree to MrJones.

[Nicole]

It's not that strange. It was shot with a Kodak EasyShare Z990, which is a pretty standard P&S camera. A wide aperture on such a small sensor can still have quite a large depth of field, and a 4.9mm focal length is also totally normal.

Meanwhile, I'd agree about it being a touch overexposed. I'd actually try to darken down around the subject a little as well, just so that the background isn't competing as much.

[eharty]

Hi,

Please see before picture. Not sure if this will help

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by eharty

Hi,
This is my third attempt and I hope that I'm starting to show some improvement. Please share your thoughts on the picture and what I can change change next time round.

ISO 200
F2.8
Shutter speed 1/200

I'm not sure what you've done before so I can't speak about any improvement, but I do have comments that I hope can help in what appears to be your real desire to get better.

The main issue I have with your image is composition, but in terms of your subject and the background.

Subject: Is placed dead in the middle fo the frame, most times that's considered a no-no (and boring to me). Sometimes a dead-center placement works, but for me this is not one of those times. I'm also not a huge fan of shooting upward for women, doesn't always work, so be careful even though it's not bad here.
Background: Even in the cropped version is busy and distracting. The fact tha the background is dark on one side of her and light on the other is a bit distracting.. This is compounded by the fact that due to your camera you're not able to blur your backgroun.. not your fault, but still a distracting element that's holding your image back.

You always need to think subject placement and background before you ever even put the camera to your eye. I think, here you were so lost in getting her looking good, you didn't consider how she fits into the scene.

Lastly, your lighting (though you can't help it) doesn't help the image much. Yes, fill light was necessary, but at some point you have to start looking into getting better light on your subject. Straight-on built-in flash is rarely good for a portrait as it flattens the subject and washes out colors (though your processing helped recover much of that). Additionally, your processing washed out some of the details on her shirt.

I've been tough on you because there's something here to work with.
Really think about your composition (and subject placement) first.. I mean really think about it. Start there and the rest will start to fall into place to the point where much of the other things will not matter.

Keep posting!

PS she's hawt!

PSS Nicole is totally right about the camera settings vs. DoF. Can't really help it with this shot. But it leads to a good suggestion for the photographer, back up, zoom in as much as possible and that'll get your background as blurry as possible.