Practicing Portraits

[swight]

Using my 50 mm, practicing head shots. I need a reflector, but this is the best I can do without one. cc really welcome!

[swight]

One More...

[Baadil]

Nice shots.
Like the pose on the first one, bright eyes in the second one, and compisiton in the third one. You might be able to make the third one a bit better by copping a bit more from the bottom. May be a pixel or more above her shirt button.

[Sabina]

I'm getting more and more into taking portrait shots myself. I like your second one best, because she really fills the frame. I prefer those types of portrait shots - taken closer to the face as that one is.

[cameron]

first 2 seem a little soft, what aperature were you shooting at?

[swight]

I'm not sure what aperature it was without looking it up, I'm guessing around 4 or 5? What do you mean by soft?

[Curtis N]

"Soft" generally means slightly out of focus or just not real sharp for any number of reasons, but none of them seem soft to me. I think they're all good in terms of expression and lighting on the face. The shiny background in #3 is a little distracting.

[Sam]

These are nice, I always struggle with getting the eye color to show up the way you have. The poses in the first two are very relaxed and natural.

The first two do seem to be greenish on my monitor. Is anyone else seeing this? I may need to recalibrate.

[schmoelzel]

Nice poses but the green colour cast in the first two is not very nice!! (unless you're from Mars!! :D)
Try using a larger aperture (f1.8, F2) and you will notice that your subject will be a little more isolated from the background. Remember to focus on the eyes when using such a wide F stop since the DoF will be very narrow (her eyes will be in focus and her ears will start to be blurred)