First B/W portrait

[hynek]

Hi,

I know there's a lot of "first portraits" with the nifty fifty, yet I hope to get some feedback anyway. I took the following picture of a friend while talking and I especially liked he intense look, that's why I decided to "zoom" in and focus on the eyes:



Camera: Nikon D90
Exposure: 0.5
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
Focal Length: 50.4 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

As I'm really a beginner, I'm not even sure, my focus was perfect. I'd like to get a general opinion and hints what's wrong with this picture as it's very hard to see with untrained eyes. :/ Are such shallow DoF pictures cliche by now? What could be done to make his face more...plastic? The light was very low btw (frankly xmas candles).

Feeback concerning postprocessing is welcome too of course!

I hope for feedback, thanks!

[ncbcymtechie]

The biggest issue with this picture is that you opted for a shutter speed of half a second. As a rule of thumb, to avoid shake from the camera affecting your picture, you should use a shutter speed of 1/focal length. Which means that for the nifty fifty at 50mm, you need to use 1/50 of a second or faster to avoid camera shake.

So since there's camera shake, I can't tell if the focus is nailed, but I can tell that you're pretty darn close, so that's good. Your ISO was at 200, and I know you were lit only by candle light, but maybe you could add more candles or up the ISO speed? Something, at least.

In terms of composition the top seems (you didn't cut off his forehead ) but the bottom is problematic as you cut off the bottom portion of his lip. So maybe you could next time include the whole lip or even the whole face?

Even so, I admire your determination in taking this picture under your circumstances. Oh, and the black and white works for me. Well done, and remember those couple of things as you shoot!

[hynek]

Thank you for taking the time to reply!

I saw, that there's "something strange", but didn't attribute it to a shake (my cameras shakes are normally much more explicit ).

It's one of my first shots in aperture-priority/manual and I totally forgot about ISO...OTOH I didn't identify the shake anyway. Now told me, I feel really stupid for shooting using ISO 200. :-/

All in all, thank you very much for your hints!

[eric_nelson]

For a first, not bad at all....a few things to keep in mind that popped out;

1. Your aperture (fstop) is set to create a very narrow DOF. I would suggest reading up on depth of field/ aperture as it has a dramatic impact on all things including shutter speed and ISO. If you continue to shoot at this fstop with low shutter I would get a tripod. This is a great video tutorial on DOF

Depth of Field – Video Tutorial

2. As for post processing...if you use Photoshop I would spend time on details such as the unsharpen mask for the eyes, this can add a dramatic pop while still preserving the image.

Good luck.....

Happy shooting!

[hynek]

Many thanks also to you for your time!

Originally Posted by eric_nelson

For a first, not bad at all....a few things to keep in mind that popped out;

1. Your aperture (fstop) is set to create a very narrow DOF. I would suggest reading up on depth of field/ aperture as it has a dramatic impact on all things including shutter speed and ISO. If you continue to shoot at this fstop with low shutter I would get a tripod. This is a great video tutorial on DOF

Depth of Field – Video Tutorial

As I'm soaking evrything up, I'll watch it. However the narrow DoF was on purpose, but I don't daresay it was artistically sound...I wanted "lead" the focus to his eyes. A tripod is on my wishlist, but in this case I suppose, I've just messed up by not setting the ISO higher. :-/

Originally Posted by eric_nelson

2. As for post processing...if you use Photoshop I would spend time on details such as the unsharpen mask for the eyes, this can add a dramatic pop while still preserving the image.

No, I hadn't another 1,500+ € so I went for Capture NX2 and will try to learn Gimp in the future. "Unsharpen Mask" sounds familiar, I'll dig deeper on that.

I'd like to conclude that it's great to be on DPS! So many constructive, friendly people.