Ok thoughts please

[Casperd360]

I still have a lot to learn as I am very new at this. But would like your thoughts.

[Casperd360]

Taken with an xsi. 50mm lens. I cant remember the settings.

[Deeners]

1/30 F1.8

[madmike0408]

Maybe it is me, but her face seems to be a bit out of focus. I do however like the color version over the B&W. Colorful tattoos shouldn't be hidden by doing black and white.

[Absolutely Fabulous]

I like the purple chair, a purple background would have rocked. her hair is dark, the background is dark, doesn't work IMO

nice choice of subject though

[Casperd360]

I can make the back ground a lavender color lol

[tonydee]

Solid result for "very new". Few suggestions, for whatever they're worth... I'd rather her front hand was completely inside the frame, and her head was right of centre. It's interesting to have a long bright length of leg and shorts across the bottom... somehow not as distracting as it sounds. As a rule of thumb, make the face at least as bright as the things nearby, so they don't pull attention away: here the chest and shoulders are dominant. Face is soft... f1.8 gives a very shallow depth of field. Wardrobe selection worth a chuckle or two; the black might be clipped at 0, suggesting slight underexposure, but there's enough around it that it doesn't attract attention and it's definitely more important not to overexpose anything else, though you can safely use your entire dynamic range then compress it ever so slightly in post-processing.

Cheers,
Tony

[Casperd360]

Solid result for "very new". Few suggestions, for whatever they're worth... I'd rather her front hand was completely inside the frame, and her head was right of centre. It's interesting to have a long bright length of leg and shorts across the bottom... somehow not as distracting as it sounds. As a rule of thumb, make the face at least as bright as the things nearby, so they don't pull attention away: here the chest and shoulders are dominant. Face is soft... f1.8 gives a very shallow depth of field. Wardrobe selection worth a chuckle or two; the black might be clipped at 0, suggesting slight underexposure, but there's enough around it that it doesn't attract attention and it's definitely more important not to overexpose anything else, though you can safely use your entire dynamic range then compress it ever so slightly in post-processing.

Cheers,
Tony

This whole shoot I did with her was based around her socks and lounging around the house clothes. lol
I will keep the hand thing in mind. What do you mean clipping the black at 0? And can you explain this "though you can safely use your entire dynamic range then compress it ever so slightly in post-processing."

This is the first time I ever actually had someone posing. Normally I am just running around with my camera. I take pictures daily. Trying to learn my camera, and what works and what doesnt. Its funny I never thought I would get addicted to something like this. I have always loved art. But there is a challenger to photography and thats what doing it for me I think.

[khatley]

I just like the shirt!

[Casperd360]

Lol I bought that for her for xmas. This is my wife everyone lol. I also bought her an xsi for xmas also. So she can share my obsessi....um hobby

[tonydee]

What do you mean clipping the black at 0? And can you explain this "though you can safely use your entire dynamic range then compress it ever so slightly in post-processing."

When you take a photo, it records the brightness of each of red, green and blue colours at each position using a number. 0 indicates no light of that colour was registered. At some points in the image - indicated as checkered areas in the version below - absolutely no red, green or blue value was recorded. Notice that parts of her T-shirt are totally black?

419722

Because the camera sensor didn't get enough light to record a reading, those areas don't present the subtle visual clues our brains expect when assessing a three dimensional surface... it's just a gaping blackness with no sense of curvature, no sense of fabric texture. That's fine for the background - there's no 3D surface there our eyes/brain are trying to resolve - but it'd be good to have some reading for the T-shirt. To get them, you could try shooting RAW instead of JPEG (if you weren't already) as it tends to record a bit more at the dark and light ends of the number range, as well as more subtle gradations in between. Alternatively, you could use a wider aperture, slower shutter, higher ISO or brighter lights to make the entire picture a fraction brighter.

You might then want to return the brighter areas of the photo to the levels we see them at currently, while having the other areas near-black but brighter. This can be done with most image editing software, including the Canon Photo Professional that comes with your camera, and the popular and free Gimp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP) software available from here (http://www.gimp.org/). An easy way to compress the brightness levels - known as the dynamic range - is with the "Curves" tools both provide: it looks something like this:

419725

In the graph, the grey diagonal represents the image as loaded. The black line represents the changes you'd like. The black dots represent "control points" that you can click and drag to change the line's position. You can even click between the dots to create new ones, creating curved lines. What the line represents is the changes in brightness you'd like. If you move the left end up - as I have - it will brighten the shadow areas of the photo. If you drag the right end down, it will darken the brightest areas. Sounds tricky, but easy to learn in a few seconds experimentation (especially if you have a preview window to show you the implications in real time).

If you think I'm crazy to even think about worrying about details like this, you'd not be alone, but I thought I'd fill you in just in case you ever wanted to try your hand at something similar ;).

This is the first time I ever actually had someone posing. Normally I am just running around with my camera. I take pictures daily. Trying to learn my camera, and what works and what doesnt. Its funny I never thought I would get addicted to something like this. I have always loved art. But there is a challenger to photography and thats what doing it for me I think.

I'm wondering what T-shirt we'll see you in when she starts posting... that's a hard act to follow!

Cheers,
Tony

[Casperd360]

Tony I have some pretty crazy tshirts.

I am going to post the pre edited photo. I wonder if I made the blacks that way in cs3.

I am shooting in raw mode. Here is the original photo