The kind of pics I take, what am I doing wrong ?

Hi All,

Below are the kind of pictures I usually take, groups of people in challangeing light conditions, I use my 430ex external flash, but I dont feel my pictures have a wow factor. I have not done any touchups, not like i'm very good at it. This was taken at night, at a hall and the one with the curtain was taken indoors at night as well, no ambient light and flash bounced off the ceiling.

Group of people, bounced off ceiling @ night

Flash bounced off the ceiling won't really give you the correct lighting pattern. To get a good lighting pattern, you need to get the flash off the camera using a radio trigger. Also, a light modifier (umbrella or softbox) will help a lot.

That being said, I don't find these images to be all that bad. You had a boring background, and the posing isn't great, but still not bad. You could try playing with the curves adjustments and see if you can get more out of these.

I hope this is at least semi-helpful.

Thanks for the post, however I was at a wedding a few weeks ago, the pro photographer didnt have to carry out a softbox or umbrella, main thing he had that I didnt was a full frame camera and superior set of lens.

What is a radio trigger and what will it do for me, do you mean standing the camera on a tripod ? Is there like a small softbox that can spread the light and can fit in a small bag. Can I find it on eb*Y ?

Lastly, If I am taking shots, I can direct my subject to change pose, do you have some tips ?

Thanks.

I agree with gibbit - they're not bad. But since you are the photog, you can suggest that they pose against a better background - half a curtain doesn't work well. In #2 you focused on the guy camera left so the people camera right are soft. In the last one you might clean the table a bit - especially the beer bottle by cloning, then crop out the cans.

Thanks for the post, really useful. I have always been very critical of myself. Regarding the focus thing, I was using spot metering, but is it true that spot metering is useful for only single portraits. Please advice where I should stick to spot metering for group shots or rather the evaluate option.

Thanks

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platforminc wrote in post #15116468
Thanks for the post, however I was at a wedding a few weeks ago, the pro photographer didnt have to carry out a softbox or umbrella, main thing he had that I didnt was a full frame camera and superior set of lens.

What is a radio trigger and what will it do for me, do you mean standing the camera on a tripod ? Is there like a small softbox that can spread the light and can fit in a small bag. Can I find it on eb*Y ?

Lastly, If I am taking shots, I can direct my subject to change pose, do you have some tips ?

Thanks.

Op said
main thing he had that I didnt was a full frame camera and superior set of lens.

Full frame and L glass, are only part of the equation. I have seen better shots taken with a pinhole camera, than I can achieve with high end gear.

I agree, Not bad photos at all. I think a couple have some focus issues. You may have had the aperture wide open. That causes focus issues when focusing close up like that.

The ring shot, You cut off the tip of her finger and she has no thumb. Looks kinda weird. Next time try pulling back a bit to get the whole hand in there.

That last shot is pretty good. I would bring down the exposure just a tad and crop out whatever that is that's blurred on the very edge of the left side. Someones hand maybe?

As far as bouncing the flash I think you have the right idea. Next time try bouncing it off a wall behind you or to your right or left and see what that does.

platforminc wrote in post #15116468
Thanks for the post, however I was at a wedding a few weeks ago, the pro photographer didnt have to carry out a softbox or umbrella, main thing he had that I didnt was a full frame camera and superior set of lens.

What is a radio trigger and what will it do for me, do you mean standing the camera on a tripod ? Is there like a small softbox that can spread the light and can fit in a small bag. Can I find it on eb*Y ?

Lastly, If I am taking shots, I can direct my subject to change pose, do you have some tips ?

Thanks.

Well, first of all, don't try and learn everything at once. A full-frame camera won't make any difference, so save your money. Read a few books on posing and lighting, and you'll start improving quickly.

Radio triggers are just what they sound like, they trigger your flash with a radio signal, so that the flash can be off of the camera. The cheap ones do not transmit the E-TTL data, so you'll have to use your flash in manual mode. This is a good thing, as using manual mode will help you learn. You can find some here: http://www.amazon.com …wboy+studio+rad​io+trigger

Softbox umbrellas are a cheap and effective way to diffuse your flash. You can find some here: http://www.amazon.com …keywords=softbo​x+umbrella

As for posing, that's really the hard part for me, and I think for most of us. You need to learn the basics of visual design (line, form, shape, etc.) and try to incorporate those into your poses. Lots of books on that, too.

Hope this helps.

The 1st 2 are what they are...I cant think of a way to make that kind of picture setup any better. It's in a house, w/ no interesting backdrop and a group photo.

The 3rd is just not composed as good as it could have been. Hand dead center and again, in a house w/ no interesting background

4, set exposure for the background and adjust the flash for your subject. IMO, It would have been much better w/ a darker background.

Overall, you did what you could w/ what you had and I dont find these to be bad at all.

Guys

Everyone has mentioned focus issue, but I still want to understand because of next time. I can see that the second pic was sharp to the left but lost sharpness when you look at subjects to the right. For group shots like this, should I focus on the middle subject next time ?

Thanks

The images don't look too bad at all.

I would take a different approach here. First I wouldn't buy any more equipment until I had what I owned figured out.

First - focus. If you are shooting a group of people you either have to pose them in a straight line or use an f-stop sufficient to keep them all in acceptable focus. Lots of things make up DOF - check it out here - http://www.dofmaster.c​om/dofjs.html

Next, flash photography - two exposures in one shot. I use manual mode on the camera and ETTL on the flash. Set the camera to expose the background as best I can, bringing in ambient light in a room as much as possible. Let the flash fill the subject - you can adjust the flash exposure separately with FEC - flash exposure compensation. And you can bounce the flash off the ceiling, wall, or both from a corner. Flash straight on to a person's face generally doesn't look as good as light coming from the side. I also use a simple bounce card on the flash head - I'm still using a Lumiquest ProMax system. Lots of folks still use a simple 3x5 card rubber banded to the flash head.

In the group shots, your flash exposure is fine but your image is flat. For natural looking photos you should bump up your ISO to get into the ambient light zone. You should also work on peoples expressions, for that you have to be charming and interact with them. Dial in your settings before you start shooting people, than forget about your settings, and find a way to make them smile.

platforminc wrote in post #15118651
Guys

Everyone has mentioned focus issue, but I still want to understand because of next time. I can see that the second pic was sharp to the left but lost sharpness when you look at subjects to the right. For group shots like this, should I focus on the middle subject next time ?

Thanks

One thing to do when taking group shots it don't go wider than f/8 with the aperture. You tend to get those OOF areas when you go wider. Boost up the flash power if you have to for more light.

The shots are ok, you have chosen one of the more challanging mixes to light, people with dark chocolate skin tones and people with very pale white skin.

a couple things to try:
get an inexpensive diffuser (or an expensive one for more flexability)
and a flash bracket with a cord to get the flash furrther off the camera.
now without spending extra cash:
your 430 ex has a bounce card built in, so while bouncing off the ceiling, pull up the flash card to push a bit of extra light forward and increase the catch light in the eyes.

I would also try shooting a little lower, there seems to be a lot of extra headroom.

a coupe of posing thoughts:
first photo - have the 2 end guys go down on one knee in front of the others
photo 2 - put the guys behind the girls
photo 3 - have her drape her hand over something, perhaps one of the gentlemans arms
photo 4 - perhaps have them sit just a bith further apart and tip their heads toward one another.

For focus, try going to center point focus, point the camera to the point you want to focus on , pull trigger halfway and hold, then reframe and shoot.

As Titus mentioned look into depth of field. You can practice/experiment with 3 or 4 helium baloons with weighted strings, you can place them like you would place people and at the correct height for faces. I would use the latex baloons - they won't last as long as the mylar but there will be less reflection issues. Also get some light and dark colored baloons. You can also tape some small pieces of paper with print on it to each balloon to be able to see how your focus is falling.


I do not know what mode you are shooting in, but you may want to look at one of the program modes .

Remember - the more comfortable you are with your equipment, meaning that you have shot enough to be pretty sure what settings to use to get the effect you want, the more time and effort you can spend on posing and talking with your subject.

Hope this was what you were looking for.
Keep up the good work, and enjoy shooting.

-John