Attractive or Distracting

[extrememc]

I am taking photos for a women's group for Mother's Day and I want to know if this will be attractive or distracting in the scene. I will be sittng this up with a white back drop. These will be majority full body shots. Your opinion is greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Seefutlung]

Nahhh ... go simple ...

[SkipD]

I agree with the previous post.

In addition, it looks like you might need to pay attention to the exposure control. The flowery screen came out looking like it's medium gray. So will a white backdrop if you don't control the exposure properly.

I would, for something like this, use ONLY manual exposure control settings - for both the flash and the camera. That way you can make sure the camera isn't going to guess wrong.

Another thing - the flowery screen is not evenly illuminated. I wouldn't use that flash for a full body shot unless you can do something about the illumination across the entire shot.

[extrememc]

I agree with the previous post.

In addition, it looks like you might need to pay attention to the exposure control. The flowery screen came out looking like it's medium gray. So will a white backdrop if you don't control the exposure properly.

I would, for something like this, use ONLY manual exposure control settings - for both the flash and the camera. That way you can make sure the camera isn't going to guess wrong.

Another thing - the flowery screen is not evenly illuminated. I wouldn't use that flash for a full body shot unless you can do something about the illumination across the entire shot.

Well this was a shot taking with my windows open and the use of flash just as a example. I will be in a well lit room with flourecent lights. What I plan to do is use a gray card for one or each shot then adjust color in CS2. I thought to use P mode. If using manual what would be a general setting?

[SkipD]

If using manual what would be a general setting?I don't think anybody could begin to suggest an aperture setting.

If you are using flash with a camera set to manual, you need to use a shutter speed at or slower than the max sync speed.

You will need to find out what aperture will work for your flash unit's output. Then, if you care to, you could slow down the shutter speed to let ambient light affect your photo.

If you are going to be under the influence of flourescent lights, you may have BIG problems. Flourescent lighting changes its intensity and color 120 times each second. You either want to make darned sure that you seriously overpower the flourescent lighting with your flash or select some very specific choices of shutter speeds so that you have a constant effect from the flourescent lights. Those specific shutter speeds are 1/120, 1/60, 1/30, and 1/15 second. NOTHING faster than 1/120 second will work properly when the lighting is conventional flourescent lighting (magnetic ballasts) or many other types of gas discharge lighting. Even if you use shutter speeds slower than 1/120 second, you must use exact multiples of the line frequency - which is why I gave the shutter speeds that I did.

[extrememc]

Well the event was horrible for me. When I setup my back drop and screen the floor in the area I set up was not level, so it cause my screen to look unleveled to a point it was noticable to me. Lesson learned there. Another problem I had was that getting the AF point to focus on what I wanted. I was trying to maintain a focus on the 3 center focus points. This was hard to achieve. What can I do in the future to achieve this? Here is some photos that I took. They are both unedited for color correction. I did crop one to remove the distraction of the uneven screen. Please give me all the advice you can give. Here is the exif data as well.

File Name
Image_0068.JPG
Camera Model
Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Shooting Date/Time
5/14/2006 2:37:31 PM
Shooting Mode
Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed )
1/25
Av( Aperture Value )
5.6
Metering Mode
Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation
+1
ISO Speed
200
Lens
18.0 - 55.0mm
Focal Length
33.0mm
Image Size
3456x2304
Image Quality
Fine
Flash
On
Flash Type
Built-In Flash
Flash Exposure Compensation
0
Red-eye Reduction
On
Shutter curtain sync
1st-curtain sync
White Balance Mode
Auto
AF Mode
One-Shot AF
Parameters Settings
Contrast Standard
Sharpness Standard
Color saturation Standard
Color tone 0
Color Space
sRGB
Noise Reduction
Off
File Size
2413KB
Custom Function
C.Fn:01-0
C.Fn:02-0
C.Fn:03-0
C.Fn:04-0
C.Fn:05-0
C.Fn:06-0
C.Fn:07-0
C.Fn:08-0
C.Fn:09-0
Drive Mode
Continuous shooting
Camera Body No.
1020633499

[andrew chong]

Sorry to hear that the event went poorly for you. Otherwise, It's great that you've got this experience under your belt and as you work at it, you'll no doubt do better next time.

Nevertheless, I think the picture you attached is quite nice. Your subject is very appealing; I like her hat and her outfit.

As you already mentioned, I agree that the screen isn't straight; that's a bummer. For next time, I'd also suggest if possible, removing the wrinkles in the backdrop sheet and perhaps having your subject centre her necklace. Since the backdrop was white, a custom white balance may have helped as it came out yellowish in this shot.

Did you have an opportunity to do some practice exposures with a stand-in ahead of time?

[extrememc]

Yes I do have the time. I just need to make more of a check list and also remember things to be mindful of in my subjects appearance. With the white balances I have several shot that I used a gray card in to allow me to adjust the color. Thank God for that!!!!