Buddha

[RobinSchouten]

Something I took with the 100mm f/2.8. A bit different from what I usually shoot, but:



Comment and critique is welcome!

[RobinSchouten]

Bump. Anything is welcome.

[Angry Dad]

I have never critiqued this forum because Im not qualified enough.
I think you have a great starting point with this shot. I would only change:
1) Reduce the contrast
2) Seems some spots are blured more than others
3) The bottom seems to have been cloned away. I dont see the base of the object.

Composition wise--I would really LOVE to see the shadow head to the far upper right corner of the pic.
Other may be more qualified then I am, but I think its a good starting point.

[MR DP.]

I'm new to mono, so not qualified to comment too critically from a mono point of view.

Anyway, my take on this is, firstly, I like the grittiness of the image, it seems very 'hard', if that's the right way to put it.

The chin area of the ornament is very dark, there's a hint of the mouth but I think it should be more noticable. Also, this must've been taken with a very wide aperture (f2.8?), as parts of the ornament are OOF and some are very sharp. That depends on what you were wanting to achieve though, maybe that's the way you wanted it to be. The empty space to the right would work better I think if the shadow was leaning into it more, or just cropping the blank area away might work better. Again though, it's about what you want to achieve. The bottom left corner does nothing for the image though I'm afraid, but a little tidying up in PS would fix that.

With a little TLC though, this could be a nice image.

[RobinSchouten]

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's really useful for me. This picture was indeed taken at f/2. 8, which explains the shallow DOF. I intentionally took 2 pictures; one with the body in focus and this one. I just don't know how to stack them together. Maybe someone can help me with that? If so, I'll change the contrast and brightness aswell as the background.

Thanks guys, I really needed someone's opinion.

[MR DP.]

You could try shooting at f5 ish, that would bring more of the ornament into focus, whilst still blurring the background, it's a bit of a trial and error game I find.