College Graduation Photos (C&C Please)

Also, I used my 50 1.8 and 18-55 3.5-5.6 for these shots. Should I have tried my 55-200?

Dirty Murd wrote in post #12428851
And Thran, thank you for the advice. More depth meaning more of a blurred background? This was not a good shoot for me, i agree. I posted them knowing I was going to get yacked on, but it's good in the end. I need the harsh reality since I have never done portraits before.

Yup! That will create a blurry background. What the lens does is open its aperture blades up all the way, creating a thin line of focus. Nah, the 55-250 wouldnt have been as good as your 50 1.8. You should have used the 50mm at fstop 1.8-2.8. That would create the best kind of depth, 1.8 may be soft. So id opt for 2.8, its sharper there.

Those shots at 2.8 and in the shade would have came out very nice.

^ Well that was the problem. I was shooting at 8-16 for f/
Guess I'm too used to shooting landscapes :/

Yep, landscapes are a totally different beast...for the most part they stay still longer than people. But you've shot some animals (birds) that don't stand still for a minute LOL, and they came out fabulous!

For the people shots on your site, and here, your lighting to shadow transitions are harsh. Look at the first photo here. Notice the right side of her face (left side of photo) the hair causes an abrupt shadow. Also, same photo, look at her chest and the abrupt shadow her head is casting. Using a reflector allows you to "fill" the shadow areas in with light so the transition to the new, more lit, shadow area is smoother. There are certainly occasions where you want harsh shadows to set some mood or something, but definitely not in this case.

I guess, in the end, it's all about YOU controlling the light, and how and where it falls. This will, in turn, have YOU controlling the shadows, and how and where they lie. Typically you want a soft smooth transition.

There are a ton of sites that discuss all this. Here's a good one to go through: http://strobist.blogsp​ot.com/

Even though you may not be using strobes, you can consider the Sun as one light, and your reflector as another, then look at lighting for two light setups. This is also why shooting at noon doesn't often work well. You won't find too many lighting setups anywhere that place a strobe directly overhead. It casts unflattering shadows, even with fill. You really really want more angle on the light then straight up.

Hope this helps you get your people photos rocking cause if you start shooting people with the skill and passion you obviously shoot landscapes, you'll be rocking hard very soon.

If you couldn't use a narrow depth of field because of how bright it was, bring a neutral density filter with you to cut out some of the light. If you don't want to use off camera flash/lighting using an on camera flash facing straight forward at -2 to -3 FEC can help cut out some of the really harsh shadows as fill flash.

i just took some photos of my girl at her graduation yesterday.. check them out for reference:

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1042909

staticuxo wrote in post #12433292
i just took some photos of my girl at her graduation yesterday.. check them out for reference:

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1042909

+1 for sure!

Actually the laptop could have been used in a more creative way if she really wanted it there. Maybe her at a desk and having it slightly OOC behind her controlling DOF.