Advice Please - Female model - 2 pics 1024x768 to see detail

[ChrisN]

I am begging for advice here. I thought I had a good shot. I took my time. The model was patient and let me setup the way I thought I would like, but when I got home, I was far from pleased. The pics were very grainy, poorly lit, blurry, not colour correct and I am getting a little frustrated with my camera.. Please help. I left the images a little large, for clarity, and I have not done any photoshop magic besides resize and rotate 90 degrees CCW. What could I have done better?

I am not looking for composition advice, nor model poses.
I would like comments on lighting (larger flash maybe?), or ways to correct the issues I stated above. Be as honest as you have to be. I will not learn if you sugar coat your answers.

Lastly, feel free, if you want to modify the photos and redisplay here (only). Please note what you did to the photo when you redisplay it.
Thanks in advance... :)

Notes on the conditions:
Lighting - Harsh Floursencents above. Well lit

Image 1:
ISO 800
F5.6
Shutter 1/60
Flash Fired
Metering : Pattern
Focal Length 56mm
http://s86984596.onlinehome.us/images/IMG_2807.jpg


Image 2:
ISO 800
F5.6
Shutter 1/60
Flash Fired
Metering : Pattern
Focal Length 54mm
http://s86984596.onlinehome.us/images/IMG_2810.jpg

[cactusclay]

Just a shot in the dark here, but did you use custom wb with flash and floresent, or just floresent?

[ChrisN]

White Balance was set to Flourescent and then tried a few with Auto. I saw absolutely no noticable difference. I have to figure out the custom balance, that may be part of it.

[cactusclay]

Set the camera to custom wb-press white balance button, then turn dial to custom wb- then get a white piece of paper, or an 18% grey card take a picture of it with manual focus, then go into the menu and select custom wb and when the image of the paper or card is displayed, press the set button and I think that does it. Make sure you use the flash too and watch out for that red eye. Good luck

[ChrisN]

Will be getting a grey card this week.

Anyone think anything else is wrong with these pics technically? if no, then I may just be getting too hard on myself.

Again, the only way to improve is to know what it is I did wrong. If its only the white balance, then, I can correct that and try again next time

[[blur]]

I'd crop them big time. There's too much going on in the background.
Nice thing about digital, if you WB properly you can shoot without flash and get decent pics. Looks like you used onboard flash hence the greater chance of redeye(flash very close to lens).
Try no flash with your largest aperture. No guarantees but you may be pleasantly surprised.

[Hellashot]

White balance looks fine, but they are either too dark or the model is too tan.

[GPR1]

Definitely, you need to expose for the model's face. The entire image looks a bit underexposed. You could also try diffusing your flash source so you get a bit softer light. BTW, when doing your custom white balance you need to fire the flash and have the white card the same distance from the camera as your main subject, so you get the right mix of ambient and flash light.

Greg

[tim]

I think an external flash would have made a big difference here. For shots that you will never get the chance to take again I highly recommend shooting in RAW, so long as you know how to process them.

[rbbblues]

great model.......great 'snapshots'........but not great images......add a little creativity by croping, angles, framing, lighting, etc..........know you can do it....(that is, if you want to)..............

[ChrisN]

These shots are straight from the computer with no creativity in Photoshop.
I had lots of time to shoot, but limited space to take the shots (not much room for moving around when a woman is bent over a car at a car show :lol: )

I don't yet have an external flash, so I was hoping that that would not be an issue. Apparently it is :(

The overhead flourescents were very harsh and even looking at the woman in that light she looked kinda dark next to the white car in the white gown.
I am not a pro, so that is why I am looking for the advice. I will be doing some studio type shots (pregnancy and new born) in the very near future and thought that I could apply the advice here to what I will be doing in the studio.

By the way. Do I use a grey card to shoot the Custom WB? the manual says it has to be white. Confused.. :(

Thanks to everyone who replied and commented, it truly helps.

[GaryTorello]

These can be improved quite a bit with a few tweaks. Below is a quick run at tweaking one of them. With some additional time spent you should be able to improve on this.

Here's what I did (in PS):

Adjusted the curves.. twice. First in curves, brought the mid-scetion of the curve up a bit.. brightening up her skin tone and other mid-range tones. Second time, moved the white-point of 255 down to 240 since there's so much white here (and in preperation for the next step).

Next I used the Dodge brush, set at about 50%, 200 dia, and doged her face, mid-section below her breasts, and legs

Then sharpened using the USM set at: 345%, radius 0.4, threshold 12

I then used the Blur Tool liberally at about 200 dia/100% on the background distractions and the reaer bumber of the car behind her.

Finally, gave the whole thing an 8x10 crop.



http://www.qgm.com/temp/car-model.jpg




Hope it helps! :lol:


Gary

[V6GTO]

Two things.

1) You need a more powerful (dedicated-hot shoe) flashgun. And/or...

2) You should have metered for the girls face.

This would have sorted out the problems 'in camera' and you would not have had to struggle with PS afterwards.

Martin.

PS - top marks to Gary for his PS work.

[Nabil-A]

Regarding the pics being grainy, i would have done the followiong in your situation,

I would have used a more moderate iso setting, something more like 200 while using a larger aperture size like F2.0 - F2.8, Auto white white balance mode, flash exposure locked off the model (point of lock - skin).

If the background came out too dark, i would have reverted to slow syncro shooting with second curtain flash (tripoded - and asking model to stay still). balancing the iso setting with slow synchro for the fastest possible delay.

Id also recommend an external flash - for best flash photography, however i do think your iso setting is culprit to the graininess of your pic.

[Mark Kemp]

Did you notice the settings 1/60 at 5.6.

Your flash is too weak to light the model and you (or the camera, if automatic) are using the limited light in the hall as the main source and setting a fairly slow shutter speed.

Slow shutter speeds mean the risk of camera shake or the model moving slightly and I think that is why this is not as crisp as it could be.

You switched to a high ISO which helps a bit, but still makes it grainy.

The slight colour cast will also come from the lights which are probably part neon and part tungsten.

I think you got as good an image as you were going to under the circumstances, but a much more powerful flash would be the quickest way to see an improvement. You just need to watch for reflections from the shiny cars.

[Nabil-A]

Just realised im no longer a junior member !!

YAAAYYY!!!!