My first portrait

[byraul]

Hello,
I'm beginner to photography and this is a photo from my first portrait photo session. Another new thing is that i just bought a wacom bamboo tablet to retouch my photos.



Nikon D40 50mm 1/160 f1.8 iso400

i thing f1.8 is a little bit big as aperture because her left eye is not in perfect focus. What do you think about this photo?

Thank you,
Raul

[konrad]

Hi!

I agree, f/1.8 is a little bit too much; I think only sky is behind her so I would use at f/4.

I think that the composition is good and her eyes are beautiful together with the expression of covering her lips. But in my opinion, some extra light on her face would create better results - for that I would use a light reflector (even something homemade if you don't have a typical light reflector).

Have fun with more portraits!

[Free]

A bit out of focus, (as mentioned probably from shooting @ 1.8) but the composition looks great.

[byraul]

@konrad
i did not use any extra lights or reflector. Just the ambient light, a cloudy day, the session ended due to rain

@Free
thanks

[Swisstony10]

I love the composition - that tight crop really works for me. And as far as the focus is concerned I quite like that slightly soft look, although that kind of thing is always going to be a matter of opinion, and one man's attractive and artistic shot is another man's example of How Not To Take A Photograph.

If you're shooting fairly close up (which is often the case using a 50mm for portraits) then f1.8 is almost always going to be way too wide - and very few lenses are at their sharpest on the very extremes of their aperture range. I would normally stop down to at least f4, or even a bit further if I could get away with it.

I agree with konrad though - if you had used a reflector (even just a small one) to bounce a bit of the natural light up onto her face, particularly on the right hand side of the picture, it would've helped things quite a lot.

Russ.

[byraul]

thank you for reply Swisstony10

I also want to mention that i took that photo on Manual focus because my Nikon D40 does not have an autofocus motor and neither the lens.