Picture of my wife on my first day of photography

[InTheDark]

My first day in photography with my very first camera(Canon EOS20D 50MM EF Mark II). There are soo many things that I need to learn about photography, but playing around all day with my camera I came out with some great shots. Here is one of my favorites. Let me know what you guys think.

[Michaelmjc]

Excellent shot for your first time at photography. I would crop the little bit of white to the left... I find I'm always drawn into that.

[Carzee]

Way to go!
Fantastic first day - a keeper. How many shots did you take?

[mr.photoguy]

Wow! both the image, and your wife are keepers...
Lucky guy..

happy you are happy with the camera.
I love the image, but would try to do something with the hot spot back there in the bushes on the right side of the image.. Maybe Burn it, or clone it out.

[ajbalazic]

Fantastic first shot! Depth of Field (DOF)/blurred background is perfect. Those 50mm really are good. An excellent lense to start with.

Welcome to the forum!

Oh, your model is lovely.

[fortinaa]

Congrats, you picked a great time and camera to jump in with. With as natural as your wife remains in front of the camera, it looks like you'll get lots of good practice. I just get the turn of the head when I start pointing the camera to experiment. Your first post is nice. As others have said, try to post process out the hot spots in the background to keep more attention on the subject. Also, could be my LCD, but it looks like it has a tad of a green hue to it as well.

[ajbalazic]

Oh, your model is lovely.

Sorry! Your wife is lovely.

[BottomBracket]

You have done well, in your camera purchase, your photography, and choosing a life partner.

[toddb]

Excellent start! You'll pick up photography fast with her....she might get tired of posing is the only thing. :-P

I suspect you where pretty close, and with that lens wide open, you get super narrow depth of feild (DOF). I wonder if you stopped the apature down next time if you can get both eyes razor sharp focus. Wide open it's 1.8, maybe try 4.0 or something. Closer you are, this DOF is magnified, so don't be afraid to use the wider apature when you farther away. The lighting is excellent, she doen't have any hot spots...background stuff is easy to fix.

[cfcRebel]

Your first-time skill make newbies like me jealous.
Nice shot and gorgeous model/wife!

[D4VE]

Your wife is very nice, as is the shot, congratulations :)

[JusSmith]

Could we see some shots from your second day of photography?

[InTheDark]

Thanks for all the great tips guys. Those tips are half the reason I posted on here. The main reason I got this great camera was all the good advice I had seen on this forum.

Fantastic first day - a keeper. How many shots did you take? I took about 120 since I only had a 1 GB CF card. We got quite a few keepers from this place, and a few from another place we were at. I definately learned the pains of natural lighting my first day out.

I'll post another for you guys to help me with since I have no photography books to read, so all of your advice is my my best way to learn. This one is from my second day. I don't know if it is better or worse as far as photographic skills go.

=)

Thanks for the help.

[tuggnet]

I really like the first shot. I agree with michaelmjc about getting rid of the bit of white in the upper left portion of the photo. DOF is great on the first shot.

2nd photo good also. Color seems a bit washed out but my be my monitor. Perhaps a bit of tweaking is PS. Did you shoot RAW mode?

Nice work.

BTW, nice abs ;-)

[CyberDyneSystems]

Excellent shots!
I love the portriat,.
the second image is grea too,. if not perhaps a little washed out as far as the color goes,.. looks like you had less than pefect lighting conditions on that day. But the framing, timing, and pose are excellent.. keep an eye on backgrounds,. in the second pic it looks like either the plantlife,. or the stucco would make a good backgrund,. but having that line of division directly behind your subject I am finding just a little distracting...

Great stuff,. I look forward to seeing more :)

//starts to hum Billy Squier...

[mr.photoguy]

Does your wife model at all?
Please tell me she does some sort of modeling..

The Second pic is Great for your first time with the camera.
I need to find me a subject like yours to shoot often...

[Ballen Photo]

STUNNING! Both the photo, AND your Wife. Kudos. :D
-Bruce

[Fer]

Welcome to the forums and congrats on your shots, very nice!

[Mills]

Welcome. You are off to a beautiful start.

[froman98]

great shots! your wife is beautiful!

[condyk]

Wow ... nice wife and cool camera combo, but I have to say if she was my wife I'd give up photography in a minute.

[berto]

nice photos!
hard to believe that this came from a new photographer. good photos anyway.

[InTheDark]

Does your wife model at all?

My wife is currently in the process of building her modeling portfolio and looking for jobs. That's the reason I got in to photography is because she has done TFP with all the good photographers in our city and she ran out of resources, so I decided to pick up the skill to help her out and other wannabe models in the area. Now I'm already addicted to photography and it's all I think about night and day.

Color seems a bit washed out but my be my monitor. Perhaps a bit of tweaking is PS. Did you shoot RAW mode?

The color was actually worse in the original. I saturated the plant and her outfit in PS to brighten it up. It was a really overcast day and I have not been able to pick up a flash for my camera yet, so I really have to just deal with what lighting is available. Makes for some tough times when you get shadows in the wrong places.

hard to believe that this came from a new photographer.

It's hard to believe for me too. I really think it was all from the combination of having a good model and a great camera. I just got lucky that reading a few articles before hand gave me enough ideas on what settings I needed to be using for each shot.

I am running in to problems though. One of them is that I am really having some issues with white balance. I was shooting in RAW so I have been able to fix that afterwards, but I would like to get it right the first time. Does anyone have a good tip for metering(with the built in metering function preferably)?

As always, thanks for the advice.

Nathan

[am_pitbull_terrier]

STUNNING! Both the photo, AND your Wife. Kudos. :D
-Bruce

What he said. Great work. :)

[drisley]

Both images are tremendous! I notice a slight greenish tone to her skin in the first one.
You may want to tweak it a bit to get a slightly "redder" skin tone. It's not hard to do at all.

[charlesu]

My wife is currently in the process of building her modeling portfolio and looking for jobs. That's the reason I got in to photography is because she has done TFP with all the good photographers in our city and she ran out of resources, so I decided to pick up the skill to help her out and other wannabe models in the area. Now I'm already addicted to photography and it's all I think about night and day.



The color was actually worse in the original. I saturated the plant and her outfit in PS to brighten it up. It was a really overcast day and I have not been able to pick up a flash for my camera yet, so I really have to just deal with what lighting is available. Makes for some tough times when you get shadows in the wrong places.



It's hard to believe for me too. I really think it was all from the combination of having a good model and a great camera. I just got lucky that reading a few articles before hand gave me enough ideas on what settings I needed to be using for each shot.

I am running in to problems though. One of them is that I am really having some issues with white balance. I was shooting in RAW so I have been able to fix that afterwards, but I would like to get it right the first time. Does anyone have a good tip for metering(with the built in metering function preferably)?

As always, thanks for the advice.

Nathan

Hi Nathan,
First of all, you made a great choice on the camera. Second, your wife is stunning, lovely. And she appears to have a knack for modeling. I'm wondering where you all are located (I would love to shoot her). If you're close at all, I'd welcome you both to a workshop.

As for your shots, don't worry too much about the hotspot (white) in the first image. You can clone in some background if you are concerned about it. There also seems to be a slight color shift, but nothing major. The composition, pose, cropping, etc. all work nicely. All in all, it's a nice portrait.

Now, the second shot? I love it. It's bold both in color and in your wife's look and body language. It all works together for the good of the image. I know some people won't like it and it's not perfect but it's cool.

I recommend you take a look at a couple of magazines and see what's happening with photography and posing/lighting in Italian Vogue. Also check out Not Only Black and White (this is an Aussie mag and it rocks!!) You'll find state of the art work in both and get plenty of pose and cropping ideas.

Good luck and please keep posting!

[luckyart60]

nice starters and nice wife hope to see more of your work as you grow with your new camera

[PhotosGuy]

Nice shots!
Does anyone have a good tip for metering(with the built in metering function preferably)? It wouldn't hurt to take a look at these for some background info:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=52418