Child Sibling Portraits in the Park on an Overcast Day

[brandy wilkinson]

I photographed my boys to practice child sibling portraits under less than perfect conditions. I need critiquing on the posing, lighting and the sharpness of the photos of this shoot. I feel like the portraits are not the quality I want to offer a client. I feel like I need more poses for variety, better exposure even though it's overcast and I need sharper focus.



Camera: Nikon D90
Shutter: 1/320
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 48.00 mm
Sensing: One chip color area
Flash: off
Meter: center weighted average
ISO speed: 800

Thanks!

[SusanH1970]

I like the posing - it's kind of cute, showing "brotherly love". The sharpness looks good for the most part, but the older boy's eyes seem to be more in focus than the younger one.

As for lighting, it's pretty flat. A reflector is a huge help in overcast conditions. It bounces some light onto the subject's face (and the eyes) and gives it a much brighter overall look.

800 is a pretty high ISO - did you set it manually, or were you on auto ISO and this is what the camera chose? On overcast days I usually don't go over 200.

[ttosifa]

Originally Posted by SusanH1970

As for lighting, it's pretty flat. A reflector is a huge help in overcast conditions. It bounces some light onto the subject's face (and the eyes) and gives it a much brighter overall look.

I would not characterize the lighting as flat, but instead soft. There are lots of shadow transition areas in the faces, and the faces (particularly the noses) show shape because of those shadow transition areas. The lighting is not particularly appealing as it is pretty much overhead, highlighting the top portions of the cheeks and putting the bottom portion in the shadows, for instance.

A reflector flattens light, so it is not generally a good solution for already flat lighting. But the lighting is not flat here, so it might have helped to reduce the contrast between highlights and the shadows again, for instance, on the cheeks.

[lputman]

I think a little post work to remove the fog and add a little pop would make this great. For the pose, I probably wouldn't have their eyes on the same level. Raise the older boy up a little.

[Bellalilyphoto]

Having your shutter speed slower will help bring in more light and will allow you to lower the ISO...you could probably go to 1/80 with children this age and be OK, since they can follow directions and will generally stay somewhat still. Maybe even a bit slower.

The pose is cute but the zoom is so close, I feel it distorts their faces just a bit...especially the older one (the top of his head and eyes are closer to the camera than his chin, so it distorts just a little).

Overall, cute pose and good job!

[slugger]

I think it's cute. Anything I've read about overcast days, is it's a good day to shoot because you get soft lighting. (I'm no pro here!) I think the lighting is fine.
The only thing I can say that I would do different, is the cropping (not sure if you did any), but I'd want more of the top of their heads rather than more of their shirts.