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Trying to learn about portrait photography

June 30, 2008, 12:27:38 PM

This is my first post, so i'll add a little of background. I'm very very new to photography, and bought a DSLR (D40 with default lens) 3 days ago, before that i didnt own any camera (not even a point and shoot, but i played with a few a bit tho). Also I don't have any background in arts at all, I studied computer science... I have a ok understanding of physics of light tho...

So since i got the camera I've been experimenting a bit with portrait photography, photographing my daughter.

I've seen a couple of high rated portrait photos in photo.net, and to be honest, I'm still not sure what are some good indicators of quality, there is probably a good fair amount of subjectivity too i guess....

Anyways, I'll post one of the photos I took and would like to hear everything about it, the good (in case it was not planned to continue doing it) and the bad (to know what i need to improve). I'm specially interesting in the latter so i can improve...

I'll give some details on the setup and what I tryed to do. First i dont have any studio lightning (not even a shoe flash) or a special room at all, I just used the living room, moved all furnature, and photographed agains what I tried to make monochrome by DOF, the wallpaper. Of course the lens, a 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 is far from ideal to achieve that, so I did what I could. I tried to capture an interesting expression, but since it's my daughter I'm not sure if its interesting at all to other people.

What im sending is the photo without any post process except curves, no cropping no dodge/burn, no nothing. I think thats the best way to show what I'm capturing. Im also interested in suggestion on postprocessing, the things i tried (not the photo i posted) were some dodge and burn to remove an abrasion in her forehead, and some burn to fix some dirt spots in the dress...

Hope someone can help me improve.... thanks in advance...

(exif available)

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BobEdens

Reply #1 - June 30, 2008, 01:43:42 PM

First: Welcome to our little community. The one thing that makes us different is EVERYONE has an opinion and will usually tell you what is wrong with a photo even if its just an opinion.. We do watch to make sure people are explaining and trying to teach when they find fault with a photo.

You did a good job with your photo. Catchlights, no hard shadows, etc. She needs to be a little closer to your light source and the backgound shielded from the light source a bit. If thats not possible try changing the angle to get a little less light on the background and more on her.

Now the hard part.
Go read all of Benji's posts on portrait photography. He is the one person here that shoots almost nothing but portraits. He has also written many tutorials on shooting portraits. They are mostly on photocamel but I believe all are here or linked.

Most every type of portrait can be found here and how it was done is usually in the thread.

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"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one heck of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. "- EB White

Ginnypenny

Reply #2 - June 30, 2008, 03:32:58 PM

I think it was a well-done first attempt. I would try a vertical crop, especially with the light fade off in the bottom right of the image.
If this is your daughter and you like the expression then you did well. If the parents like the expression that is what sells and what matters.

I think the cheek on the right side of the frame (her left) is a little overexposed.

If you are using window light you may think about getting a reflector to bounce light (cheap white posterboard works).

Keep practicing, that's the best thing you can do.

Oh and welcome to the forum, keep posting your work, you'll get better in no time.

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Susie
www.charlesbarnardphotography.com
www.definitionimages.com

Aqualuna

Reply #3 - June 30, 2008, 04:53:36 PM

I was checking benjis tutorial, pretty good stuff, thanks for the tip... very enlightning, before that i just read a few tutorials in photo.net but they were not that usefull, kinda narrow and many things were kinda pretty obvious.

Yeah the glow in the right side lead to some kind of loss of detail, the histogram doesnt show overexposure tho, i belive it might be a specular glow... About the background, yeah i figured after checking the photos, that it was glowing more than what i expected, so ill try to block it there in some way with what you suggest, thats definelty a cheap way to improve lighting.

Thanks for the welcome bob edens, the one reason i joined this forum was because i saw one post from wildmaven were she asked for help and everyene gave their opinions on how to fix the lighting and stuff... On other communities ive seen lot of people commenting on whats good about a photo, but that is of not much use when you want to improve, you really want to know what is not that good, to improve...

My light source are the clouds, I suppose i forgot to tell you that. I've shot like 3 times only with the incamera (not shoe) flash, and it sucked, even when i tried to use it as "fill flash". Incandencent and fluorecent spectra is so differnt from "white" sun light, that ive avoid it... On the other hand i havent experimented if its possible to cancel out the artificial light tint to look just like natural.

thanks again for the help

« Last Edit: June 30, 2008, 04:55:30 PM by Aqualuna »

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BobEdens

Reply #4 - June 30, 2008, 08:50:47 PM

That's why we're different. Heck even some here I call masters have learned from the constant critiques of all the photos.

Ok so

clouds don't produce light.

is your main light a window? if so a) where in the world do you live and b) which direction as in North are you facing when you look out said window.

get something that is 18% gray. The gray is more important than the 18% take photo of said gray thing and use it to set your white balance then any light you use will work.

keep posting, more importantly, keep shooting.

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"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one heck of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. "- EB White

jkleb

Reply #5 - July 01, 2008, 05:12:22 AM

Quote

I've shot like 3 times only with the incamera (not shoe) flash, and it sucked

I wish more people realized this. Most blame it on the camera and think that they need to spend a few thousand more on a body to take good photos.

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-John
Sarcasm, frustrating the clueless since 3000 b.c.

Aqualuna

Reply #6 - July 01, 2008, 11:27:49 AM

Yeah I just wanted to point out that light was not direct sunlight but diffused by clouds.

Yeah light comes from window and reflections in the living room... I live in Chile, the room there is an apartmenet with windows to the north and the east. the pics i took kinda at 11pm, when the sun if it wasnt because of the clouds, would be visible from the windows.

What is the % of gray? you mean something that absorbs only 18% of light and reflects the rest?

Im shooting in raw, not sure if white balance is stored in the NEF. I'll have to check that... I'll try shooting with artificial light and see if i can adjust WB so that colors look alright. If thats possible that will give me much more freedom in how to arrange lighting....

Quote from: BobEdens on June 30, 2008, 08:50:47 PM

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BobEdens

Reply #7 - July 01, 2008, 01:04:15 PM

I went into a camera store and asked for a "gray card" Probably the best $5 I've spent.

something to play with is take a photo, RAW that has a bunch of pastel colors. Using your photo edit software set the white balance to each color.
A pale green will have the same effect as shooting through a warming filter. The exercise will teach you how to "set" your white balance to get the colors you want.

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"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one heck of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. "- EB White

Aqualuna

Reply #8 - July 01, 2008, 01:57:13 PM

I'll probalby buy the card then... Actually the pastel color thing gave me an idea... i suppose i could take a photo of some colors and try to match them in the monitor, that should work similar to the gray card i guess...

Another problem I'm seeing are the differnt gamuts, I'm not sure how much of the adobe RGB gamut the camera covers, but LCDs usually have a much narrower gamut. Not sure if prints usually cover the adobe RGB gamut...

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Benji

Reply #9 - July 01, 2008, 02:09:12 PM

AL,

I suggest setting the camera to shoot Raw. Then after you get the subject posed, first shoot an 18% gray card, then you photograph the subject. You will only need a second gray card reading if you change the lights. Load the images into Adobe Camera Raw and take the eyedropper at the left and click on the gray card, then click on Select All then Synchronize. All of the images will now be perfectly color balanced.

In your image above turn her so her torso is at a 45 degree angle to the camera rather than straight on.

Benji

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Ginnypenny

Reply #10 - July 01, 2008, 02:23:55 PM

Another thing you can do is take a picture of the grey card (make sure it fills the frame) in the lighting you will be using with your camera in an auto setting. Then manually set your camera to the same settings. I used to do this before I got a light meter. I needed to do this because my camera would be fooled by the white wedding dress and underexpose images. I soon got lazy and ditched the card and learned to do it off the bride's skin, but you have to compensate for how fair/dark she is.

Obviously this is for ambient light, not for flash or studio lights.

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Susie
www.charlesbarnardphotography.com
www.definitionimages.com

Travis Minnig

Reply #11 - July 01, 2008, 03:32:50 PM

Looks like you have a good start on portrait photography and lighting, Aqualuna. You also recieved a lot of good advice and tips here, so I just want to say Welcome to PAF! Thanks for posting and discussing your image with us so much. I hope to see more of your work soon.

Travis

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