First Post

[MaverickJL]

This is my first time taking a portrait. Im new into photography so please don't hold back on the critique. The more you say the more I learn. If you disagree with someone else's critique please post why, the variation in views will help me learn more efficiently. Also, until i can figure out how to make a Flikr account, this one is linked to Facebook. Which in my opinion destroys my pictures, but its a start...

I used two off camera constant lights. The first was about two feet overhead and to the right of the model, and the second was horizontal from the right about chest level. There was a sliding glass door with good "natural" lighting coming through from the left so my concern was more for fill lighting than trying to change anything.


Nikon D5100
ISO: 1600
50mm
f/ 1.4
Shutter Speed: 1/320

[graciousness]

Hi there and welcome to the forum!

First thing I noticed is that the focus is too soft. She is a little bit blurry for me and especially around the eyes where sharpness matters most. This is probably due to your f/stop being so wide at f/1.4 that it is difficult to nail sharpness/focus at such a wide aperture (low f/stop).

I'm also wondering about your settings. If you had external lighting off camera, why did you choose to use f/1.4 and an ISO of 1600? Also, that shutter speed is so fast it's unnecessary. You did use a model and she is posed in this shot - no need for such a high shutter speed.

Your focal length is also short, being 50mm. I am assuming that you used a 50mm prime with f/1.4 - I would have backed off and not taken the shot so close. With such a close distance, it distorts faces (makes nose bigger).

The lighting, on the other hand, is fine, although you achieved the exposure by such extreme camera settings. I would have used an f/stop minimum of f/2.8 (in number) and really lock in focus on her eyes, ISO of around 200 or 400 if really required, shutter speed of 1/60 or thereabouts. And with these settings, I then would have adjusted the off camera flash accordingly.

Fill light with two constant lights used? Ok, now I understand why you chose those settings on your camera. I still wouldn't have used the camera settings you've chosen, except for increasing the ISO to maximum 800 if you really wanted to minimise the use of the constant lights and utilise the natural light.

This would have been a cracking photo if not for the lack of sharpness.

Cheers and hope to see more of your photos soon!

Grace

[MaverickJL]

You were not "Gracious" and I LOVE IT! While I am learning to take a full control of my camera, I shot the photo in Aperture Priority. You were right that I used a rented Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 and you were correct that I was close to the subject (approx. just over 1 meter.) I wanted to shoot a nice Head and Shoulders portrait and fill the frame. How can I fill the frame as I did from further away? Perhaps a zoom lens rather than a fixed next time? One last thing. I have not perfected getting tack sharp images without a tripod, which is how I justify the fast shutter speed, and may also show how that one "crutch" setting explains my other setting choices to preserve the overall exposer. Any additional critique?

[graciousness]

You can use a prime lens, but use minimum of 85mm.

However, I would suggest yes, rent a zoom lens (telephoto) and step back when taking portraits.

Right, I think there's a better way to explain this ---

Focal Lengths in Portrait photography on Vimeo

Fast shutter speed is not going to help you if you are using such a wide aperture and shallow DOF. As a matter of fact, it will affect your ambient light if you use it.

And additional critique? Ok, I guess I can nitpick some more

- there is a few blemishes on her cheek near her nose (camera left) and highlighted jawling (camera right); I would fix that in post processing;

- Did you use gaussian blur or something similar in post processing? Blur, perhaps on her face? I don't know what it is, but it's a bit much;

- Whilst doing this shoot, I would have fixed the baby hair bunched up on her hairline. It almost looks like smudge of dirt or something, esp when blurred;

- Catchlights in her eyes - whilst I don't mind them, you can see the square diffuser you used on camera left (or is that a window)? You want round catchlights and preferably, only one. There's another couple of lights reflected in her eyes which is a little distracting.

Ok that's it. Now that's really nitpicking and had to really push myself. Cheers for that

I would suggest watching portrait tutorials on youtube more on focal lengths, catchlights, camera settings, etc. I do think you're off to a good start so keep at it!

Cheers,

Grace

[MaverickJL]

I watched the video. He used the entire Trinity. Seeing as I do more events those are three lens' Im saving up for. Thank you very much!

[tokyomark]

@MaverickJL
Nice shot and a lovely girl. Not that you need me to make the point also, but too bad it wasn't a bit sharper. Anyway, I look forward to seeing more of your work!

Also, I hope you don't mind me asking a question in your thread.

@Grace, about this:

Originally Posted by graciousness

Fast shutter speed is not going to help you if you are using such a wide aperture and shallow DOF. As a matter of fact, it will affect your ambient light if you use it.
Grace

How will the shutter speed affect the ambient light?

Which leads me to another question.
I understand about adjusting aperture to control DOF. (Shooting in Manual,) I usually start with aperture and then adjust the shutter speed to get the proper exposure. But in what cases would you start with shutter speed (and then adjust the aperture?) I mean, do you sometimes first decide on the shutter speed to get a certain result?

Thanks!

Mark

[graciousness]

Originally Posted by tokyomark

@Grace, about this:

How will the shutter speed affect the ambient light?

Which leads me to another question.
I understand about adjusting aperture to control DOF. (Shooting in Manual,) I usually start with aperture and then adjust the shutter speed to get the proper exposure. But in what cases would you start with shutter speed (and then adjust the aperture?) I mean, do you sometimes first decide on the shutter speed to get a certain result?

Thanks!

Mark

Hi Mark, sorry if I'm just answering this now as I haven't been home all day until now.

Shutter speed affects your ambient light. The slower the shutter speed, the more ambient light you bring in. That means the faster the shutter speed, the darker your photo gets.

What is ambient light? It's light that comes from the sun or artificial light sources (lamps, lightposts, etc) indoors or outdoors. Your shutter speed determines how long the camera/lens sees this light.

Note that if you are using flash, shutter speed does not affect your flash output. Regardless of the shutter speed you use, light from your flash does not get lighter or darker (but changes in ISO or aperture/fstop does).

To explain this better, attached are a couple of links you need to read:

http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-pho...g-the-shutter/

ASA – ISO Ambient Light Rule – PictureCorrect


You should really read up on Neil vanNiekerk's website as it's just brilliant as he explains flash and basic photography so well.

To answer your question:

But in what cases would you start with shutter speed (and then adjust the aperture?) I mean, do you sometimes first decide on the shutter speed to get a certain result?

Just to cover the basic of shutter speed, here's a link that will help you:

Introduction to Shutter Speed in Digital Photography

Usually, if you are taking photos of people, objects, still landscapes and when you want bokeh, you prioritise your aperture (f/stop) for sharpness and controlled DOF. When you want to blur your background, you choose wide aperture. When you need your entire scene in focus, you use bigger f/stops. When you don't want your camera to decide for you how shallow or how wide your area of focus is in the image, you use Aperture Priority or Manual to make sure your chosen aperture does not change unless you tell the camera to. You will find that most of the time, most scenes call for prioritising aperture over shutter speed.

When a scene or your creative vision calls for a certain motion effect, i.e. freezing a fast moving object whilst blurring speed in the background (panning), creating milky water effect with moving water, creating light effects with smoke or nightshots of cars moving on a freeway, this calls for controlling your shutter speed (long exposure). Here are a couple of links that will show you when you want to use slow shutter speed or long exposure to create a certain effect:

Slow Shutter Shoot-Out – 3 Slow Shutter Speed Techniques

Slow Shutter Speeds and Long Exposure Photography – PictureCorrect


I know I'm not the best person to answer your question as I tend to not explain things very well (I suck at technical lingo), but I hope this helps you anyway.

Cheers,

Grace

[tokyomark]

Wow, Grace! Thanks so much.

That's a lot for me to look into and should keep me busy for a while.

Although I didn't articulate it very well, I guess I was looking for your advice on using the shutter speed to control lighting. But it looks like you've given me resources to cover this.

And about this:

Originally Posted by graciousness

I know I'm not the best person to answer your question as I tend to not explain things very well (I suck at technical lingo), but I hope this helps you anyway.

Not at all! You've been very helpful. I've learned a ton from you, both here and from other posts. Thank you very much!

Mark

[Yasmin K]

Hi all,
This is my first upload. Never used flickr before and I am new here. Please feel free to tell me what you think.

Pyramid of Giza | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[graciousness]

Originally Posted by tokyomark

Wow, Grace! Thanks so much.

That's a lot for me to look into and should keep me busy for a while.

Although I didn't articulate it very well, I guess I was looking for your advice on using the shutter speed to control lighting. But it looks like you've given me resources to cover this.

Mark

Well, I can only think of a very few instances when you want to use shutter speed to control lighting (ambient light). For instance, if you are taking photo outside of someone against a bright sky, you want to: 1) use fill flash to brighten the person's face; (2) use your shutter speed to darken the sky. In Neil's link that I posted above, you will see examples of this in the photos with varying shutter speed and how it affected the background/sky but not the flash output used on the subject.

The only other time I can think of that you want to use shutter speed to control light is when a scene is really dark (like shooting at night, for instance) and your aperture and ISO are not enough to bring ambient light into the picture, you then also use shutter speed to bring in more light by using long exposure (very slow shutter speed). This will require a very stable camera with the use of tripod or mounting it on something immobile (tables, bean bags, etc) to avoid motion blur. If people are involved in this shot, then this requires a bit more complex settings involving flash and rear curtain sync.

At this time, the only thing that you really need to keep in mind regarding shutter speed is to use it to control motion, by either capturing or freezing motion. Leave it to aperture and ISO to control lighting until such time when you use flash and shoot at night. I would really only pay heed to the amount of light your shutter speed will bring in to the scene if you are going to use really slow shutter speeds or extremely fast shutter speeds.

It's all a light balancing act with your aperture, ISO and shutter speed. The more you shoot, the more you vary your shots with different scenes, the more this will all make sense.

If you want to test how shutter speed affects ambient light, get your camera right now, point it at the sky, set your camera on MANUAL with ISO at 100 or 200, aperture at f/4 and then take a shot with shutter speed from 1/60 to 1/250. It will all make sense once you do this exercise.

Cheers,

Grace