Recent Senior Portrait Work - Coming out of retirement, for real this time

So I've struggled with finding my passion with photography over the past 4-5 years, mainly from being burned out from my previous full-time job and juggling my extremely busy photography business. During this time, I have since married my beautiful, supporting wife...have a new job I love, and i'm falling back in love with the craft.

Below are some of my recent Senior Portrait work. Please feel free to comment/critique. I am open to all

1)

I would say a really good job overall with good compositions, the clients should be thrilled.

The things that i see to look out for are:

Missed focus on a few images, perhaps due to limited AF points in your camera. Consider back button focus or focus and recompose. These few areas are hard to see while chimping, but being aware of it, you can compensate for it in the future. #4, her back eye is in focus, not the closest eye. #6 His shoulder is in focus, not his face. If you are spot on with your AF points, check your lens micro adjustment.

#3, the first image seems a little off with the crop on his body and the slight angle/tilt. I can see a wider image shot from a lower angle working well here, especially with a bland sky showing more of the stadium as in #6, perhaps with him getting ready to throw the foot ball or just a wide stance.

#6 is slightly an effeminate pose. I think more of a straight on shot of his back would be a stronger pose.

A nit pick, but in #2 his eyes may be a little over whitened.

I like them all and love the creativity of #7.

@Micro5797
Thank you very much for your critique, I really appreciate it.

I've felt for quite some time my focus was off. I usually do a center-focus point focus and recompose. I'll be honest, i'm not quite sure what you mean by "check your lens micro adjustment". I'm going to look into this....

Is this something I need to send my lens in or that I can adjust myself?

I am using the older 5D mII so focus points are a bit limited. I certainly am looking at upgrading my main body very soon.
Thanks again for your input!

jrowephoto wrote in post #18307246
@Micro5797
Thank you very much for your critique, I really appreciate it.

I've felt for quite some time my focus was off. I usually do a center-focus point focus and recompose. I'll be honest, i'm not quite sure what you mean by "check your lens micro adjustment". I'm going to look into this....

Is this something I need to send my lens in or that I can adjust myself?

I am using the older 5D mII so focus points are a bit limited. I certainly am looking at upgrading my main body very soon.
Thanks again for your input!

The focus issue may simply be a focus/recompose issue, this would be more noticeably at wider apertures like F/2.8. There are lots of how to's for this lens to body adjustment procedure. Below i will post a link to one to give you an idea. Essentially lenses and camera bodes need to be aligned together internally via built in menu options in the camera to assure that your lens is focusing on the subject, not in front (front focus) of or behind the subject (back focus). The shallower the DOF and aperture, the more critical this is.

I find that with my Canon lenses i need a + or - 3 out of 20. I have one Tamron lens that is +13 out of a total 20. Meaning that even at F/8 my subject was not in focus. I am sure that if yours is off, it is not off by more then 2 or 3 points off of 0 from a possible -20 to +20.

There are four main ways that i know of to do this at home.
One is called dottune (youtube video)
Live view via canon software (eos utility)while your camera is connected to your computer. Google how to.
FoCal automatic software.
LensAlign MkII or the DataColor SpyderLensCal. These are charts that you focus on and check sharpness. Google for the product.


My local camera sales store charges $25-$30 per lens (with camera body) to do this and it usually takes less then 1 day.
It can take a while to teach your self and study up on the way that you want to try. You can always set it back to factory settings of ), so there is no chance of hurting your camera.
i recommend just paying the few dollars and have it done for you due to the effort.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=7zE50jCUPhM
https://www.reikanfoca​l.com/
General guide https://contrastly.com​/autofocus-microadjustment/