People photo shoot (my first proper experience)

Hi All,

I love this forum, people always wanting to help especially learners like me. I have a 50mm f1.8 and also a 17-50 f2.8 VC. I was playing up shots in a park yesterdat, well with a model and here are the things i noticed.

1. I tried to move away from auto focus and instead focus using manual, I zoomed in when using the tamron and then manual focused and then zoomed out to take the shots, whilst some of the shots were sharp, others were not. Could this be that I was shaking (not using tripod) and in some cases, my focus point had actually moved. I always try and focus on the eyes.
   
   
2. It was in a park with a pond in the background, so I decided to use a narrow DOF but not blur it out too much, so around f2.8 and f4 ISO 200. what are the general guidelines on ISO settings outdoors where there is enough ambient light ?
   
   
3. Sometimes when I took a shot with the pond at the background, it became overexposed and instead of seeing clear water, it became kind of white.
   
   
4. Lastly, I would like to know what kind of touchups one can do to potraits, I know how to use the healing brush and the spot healing brush, also learnt how to use the Gausian blur to pop out a picture. I would like to learn the obvious thing, I always like when the skin is a little blurred, it gives a softer finish as long as its not overdone. Is there anything in particular I ought to be looking at ? When I also loaded the raw file, and attempted to correct the white balance using the while balance tool, the result was awful. I was better off leaving it the way it was before, being that the picture was taken outdoors, and I used a white card (took a picture of a white piece of paper, and used it as custom white balance). I have been hearing of grey card, not sure what I should be doing ?
   

1. A few possibilities here. If you're using a wide aperture and a thin depth-of-field, any slight amount of movement by you and/or the subject can cause the eyes to fall out of the depth of field. Or, it could be that when you zoom with that lens, the focus shifts a little bit. Or, it could be motion blur on the part of the subject, or camera shake.

1a. If your camera body has Live View, use that when manually focusing. Turn on Live View, and frame the shot. Then, without moving the camera and framing, move the cursor over the eyes and zoom in to 5x or even 10x in Live View. Manually focus on the eyes, and take the shot.

1b. What shutter speed were you using? When using ambient light (not flash) as the main light source, you'll want a moderately fast shutter speed. I try to use no slower than 1/80 for posed subjects, preferring 1/125 (or faster) if light allows. Anything slower than that will risk a little bit of blur due to micro-movements on the part of the subject, and maybe a bit of camera shake. The VC on the Tamron lens probably would have prevented most blur due to camera shake, especially if you're using a proper posture and camera-holding technique.

1c. Shooting outdoors during the day with a wide aperture, you were likely using a very fast shutter speed. So it's almost certainly a focus issue: either the focus shifted when you zoomed the lens back out, or you or the subject moved slightly closer or farther apart.

2. Always start with ISO 100, then choose the minimum shutter speed based on the type of subject you're shooting, choose the aperture based on the "look" and depth-of-field you like for the photo. Finally, increase the ISO as necessary to get an appropriate exposure. Lower is better! If you're shooting people at f/4, ISO200, and 1/1000 shutter, you may as well dial the ISO down to ISO100 and dial the shutter speed back to 1/500.

2a. Increase the ISO as necessary, to get the exposure correct in the camera. If you underexpose by a stop, only to brighten it uplater in Photoshop, it'll probably look worse than if you had just increased the ISO by a stop in the camera. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but for now you should plan to increase the ISO to get the exposure correct in the camera. So if you're at your minimum acceptable shutter speed of 1/80, and the aperture is where you want it at f/4, and ISO100 is underexposing by two stops, then go ahead and increase the ISO to ISO400 for the correct exposure. Or go to ISO200 and f/2.8.

3. Set your exposure so that the subject looks correct. If the background (in your case, the pond) is overexposed, then you can either shoot during a different time of day, or use flash to balance the subject and the background. In some cases - like sunlight reflecting off the water - you can use a polarizer to reduce the bright glare off the water.

4a. Different people have different opinions on what looks good for skin processing. I'm not a big fan of the ol' gaussian-blur technique. My current technique for skin processing is Cameron Rad's "A Perfect Lie" technique - do a Youtube search and you should find it.

4b. If you're using a white piece of paper as your "neutral" target, you must be absolutely certain that the white paper is not overexposed. If the paper is overexposed to the point of clipping one or more color channels then it can not be used to set the white balance. This is why many people use a gray card; if the gray is slightly overexposed, it probably still won't clip any of the color channels.

I will read thoroughly again, I found this extremely useful

Would you consider using servo AF for portraits? like, focus on the eye and then feel safe that it stays there.

Hello everyone, following on from a shoot that I done this weekend. Below is my experience, It was without notice, so It wasnt like I had my equipment all setup etc. I simply went to a birthday get together, and since the camera in use was a point and shoot, which was sparking a flash in the face of the subject, I thought I could do better than that and then offered to use my camera to shoot, learning in the process as well.

Kit in use, Canon 500D, Tamron 17-55 f2.8 and a 430ex flash.

First of all I started out manually, taking some group picture of the celebrant, I then noticed that the pictures were somewhat blurry. The subjects were not still, I started with iso 400 or so, and f2.8/f4 I think, and I think when I done the metering it was coming out under exposed, so I increased the shutter speed forgeting that anything up to 0.5" my hands were no longer steady, it was in such a small confined space too, I was about 5-6 yards away from the subject. I was also bouncing off the flash off the ceiling as it was at night, and only tungsten lights were on with very little ambient light.

Then later on in the evening, it turned to cases were the subject was dancing, and yet people also wanted to take personal shots with the subject too. So here I thought I dont want to have to be changing settings all the time, manual settings for still shots for a group of people isnt going to work for a moving subject too, as the shutter speed requirements arent quite thesame. I was also fiddling on the correct manual settings also, and wasnt very confident that the setting was right, although if I had more time before being ased to take pictures, I could have chosen the right setting (take picture and evaluate the results). I then resorted to sports mode, as here I could capture celebratory movement, hugs in speeches etc. Was this the right thing to do ? When I tried to use a very fast shutter speen in manual mode, going up to F12 was still being metered as over exposed. At that point I gave up and then went onto sports mode.

Also, later on in the night, they switched on a floor standing lamp, and this lamp was behind the subject, so it kept coming up with the horrible looking light source, also meant that one corner of the pics suddenly seemed extremely bright. I regret not asking them to turn it off. Apart from asking for it to be turned off, anything I can do from a camera perspective ?

Any ideas on how I can improve things in future, as these are the kind of shots I usually take especially indoors and with a group of people.

Thanks

platforminc wrote in post #14628363
Any ideas on how I can improve things in future, as these are the kind of shots I usually take especially indoors and with a group of people.

sure, stop trying to outsmart yourself. let that camera do some of the heavy lifting.

1. stay away from manual focus. way to hard to tell if you have focus. unless you are on a tripod with live view zoomed in to 5 or 10x, especially at wide apertures, you will miss focus. sure you can get lucky, but...

2. stay away from manual mode. unless you are in a studio or using a non eTTL flash, or doing something crazy like long exposures, you don't need it. its there when you HAVE to take control, when your camera has no idea what it needs to do or when it want to do something you don't want it too.

3. pick either Av or Tv, depending on whether you want to control aperture or shutter speed. let the camera pick the other. it has a certain exposure its trying to hit, let it do it for you, just keep an eye on what it does, you dont want to be in Av mode, ISO f5.6 and have the shutter drop to 1/20, in this case raise the ISO to get a higher shutter.

seriously you have enough to worry about getting the light right, composition, being creative, directing people, etc. let that fine piece of equipment do its job and you focus on the important parts.

ETA, also read the manual on metering, that you help you with back lighting problems. then if you still have questions we can help clear things up.

Thanks very much, please point me to the metering manual.

I am very much for using the cameras 'intelligence' as much as possible, but I seriously think that for the specific case platforminc describes (birthday party...) manual mode is by far the best.

I usually choose 1/160 (or if I must 1/125) to freeze the szene with people. Then the aperture is chosen based on single portrait (f/2.8) or several people (e.g. f/5.6). Iso depends on the amount of light available. The flash ETTL takes care of the rest. This is probably the most flexible set up for such an event with candids and fast changing situations.

I do agree to stay in autofocus mode (center) though.

Oh: And try to bounce the flash - avoid direct illumination.