Be Honest...

[RItz68]

This is a photo of our 15 year old daughter I took outside at a park on a nice sunny day.
I am so new to this, I really need to know about settings. I like this photo a lot, but I know you all can pick it apart. So go ahead...I'm ready...



20111120-DSC_0096 by famof5, on Flickr


Nikon D5100
f/5.6
1/125 sec.
ISO 400
Focal Length: 55mm
Subject distance: 1.4m
Flash Mode: No flash, Auto
35mm Focal length: 82

[IABoomer]

It's not showing up here and it can't be viewed on Flickr because you've got it set as private.

[IABoomer]

On your Flickr image, click the button that says "Share"
Click the "Grab the HTML/BBCode"
Make sure BBCode is selected (I personally prefer it to the HTML as it posts the caption below the image)
Select a size (Medium 640 works well for this forum)
Copy and paste the text like so:

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/gomez-family/6438417509/][img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7024/6438417509_5e6e21f621_z.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/gomez-family/6438417509/]20111120-DSC_0096[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/gomez-family/]famof5[/url], on Flickr

[RItz68]

Thank you IABoomer for walking me through that.

[Doug Sundseth]

Your exposure works pretty well and you've thrown the background out of focus to draw attention to your subject quite nicely. I also like the expression you've captured (I've known a few 15-y.o. girls with that same attitude. )

Things I would like to see:

* There's a bit too much rock behind your daughter's head for my taste. If you crop a bit from the right, I think the composition will work better.

* The light you've used is very flat. A bit of directional light to reveal the shapes of your daughter's face would help quite a bit. This could be from an off-camera flash or a reflector (most commonly; there are other ways). The flat light works very well as a fill light, guaranteeing you details in the shadows, but a directional key would really help.

I think you're pretty close to a really nice photo here.

[IABoomer]

No problem. Now that the image is up...

I like the focus, sharpness, depth of field. The colors are a little subdued, but that's a style issue and it works for this. The lighting and her skin tones are nice and smooth.

My first thought was, she's a bit centered; but with the brighter background on the left balanced by the darker rocks on the right, I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing. It'd be a bit bright and similar if you recomposed/cropped the rocks on the right, and she might be kind of cramped if you cropped/recomposed out the background on the left.

Nice shot. Pretty girl. I'd hope she'd be happy with this.

[RItz68]

Thanks guys. Now here's another question. I didn't set ISO, or aperture, etc. I just got close to her, with whatever settings I had, and took the shot. In a situation like this, how do I know, what to make my settings>

That's what I really want to learn. How do you guys "KNOW" what settings to use? Thanks for the critique.

[sk66]

Beautiful girl, gorgeous eyes.
IMO, the lighting is very good. A little key light to add catchlights and a touch of detail would be better, but not by much.
Crop, Cropping from the top/rt would get rid of some empty space and make the image better composed by placing her eyes at the 1/3 line. But that would make her skin tones compete more with the BG tones.
Cropping from the top/left would also place her eyes at the (opposite) 1/3 line and make her face the lightest majority area of the image (which draws attention) which I think might be better, but then the rock is also in focus and would compete slightly.

Most don't "know what settings to use". They know what setting(s) they care most about. For a portrait it is usually aperture...a balancing act between sharpness and DOF for background separation. IMO, it shouldn't usually be "just" aperture, but things get a bit more complex then. The other settings get "balanced" to accommodate the chosen aperture.

You can "guesstimate" the proper settings using the "sunny 16 rule", or just from experience, but most don't...I've mostly forgotten the "sunny 16 rule".

[ajax_andy]

Originally Posted by RItz68

Thanks guys. Now here's another question. I didn't set ISO, or aperture, etc. I just got close to her, with whatever settings I had, and took the shot. In a situation like this, how do I know, what to make my settings>

That's what I really want to learn. How do you guys "KNOW" what settings to use? Thanks for the critique.

Your f/stop will control the amount of DOF so the lower the number the more blurred the background will be. So usually start off thinking about this, do you want the background blurred? If so the choose a low number like f/4 or lower. Bigger aperture (more blurred background) = lower number

Then when it comes to ISO the higher the number the more grainy the pic will be, so want it nice and sharp? Choose ISO 100 or 200.

Then comes the shutter speed... you want it fairly fast or you'll get motion blur from camera shake or if the subject moves slightly.

Do you have a thing that looks like this in the viewfinder?


|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ || _ _ _ _ _ _ _|

You need to get the arrow or pointer in the middle of this to have a correct exposure... too much one way your pic will be over exposed, and too much the other way and it'll be under exposed.

On my canon 450d if I set for example an aperture of f/2.8 and an ISO of 200 with a shutter speed of 1/20 it might look like this

|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ || _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
...../\


So I'd be under exposing the image... increase the shutter speed to 1/200 and it might look like this which would be over exposed

|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ || _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
................................/\


So I would then choose 1/100 for a shutter speed and it might look like this

|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ || _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
..................../\

And that would be a correctly exposed image and I'd know I had my settings right



Note - Some camera's its the other way around to my diagrams with under exposure on the right and vice versa for over exposure, you'll need to play around with it to see which way around yours is

Note 2 - If an image is over or under exposed you can correct this by changing ISO or Aperture (or both) instead of shutter speeds instead if required but obviously this will change your depth of field or picture grain / noise

Note 3 - The shutter speeds I used are just random examples, I haven't worked them out before anyone shoots me down because I've actually calculated the exposures wrong... it's purely an example to show how you can tell if a pic is exposed correctly.

[Rentham]

Andy I think you may have transposed your numbers. If you're underexposed at 2.8 20th you definitely won't be overexposed at 2.8 200th. Or am I missing something?