I offered a pre wedding shoot for a friend. How can i improve

Hi All.

I figured out that the best way for me to learn was to be taking more photos, to this note I offered a friend a pre wedding shoot. Some of the questions that I have for the pros in the house concerns how to have a shallow DOF when shooting a group of people i.e 3- 10. I was using my 17-50 2.8 and I noticed that my DOF was not really shallow, so I switched to the 1.8 50 fixed lens.


F2.2, 1/1000 sec and iso 100, focal length 50mm

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Martin Dixon wrote in post #17062095
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yup.

Yeah you need to resize these.

I'll have a go for you, firstly your lighting is a little flat in all of these, did you use your flash? If possible get your flash off the camera and use it to fill lighting.

1, really awkward pose and heavy shadow under the chin where her heads tucked in.
2, probably the best of the bunch but a bit flat.
3, composition is dead centre and again her pose is a bit awkward. Also be cautious of your backgrounds as he has a little boy growing out of his shoulder.

shutter speed was crazy high,u could have closed the lens some and got a bit more background in focus and maybe add a bit of contrast,nice photos though

Martin Dixon wrote in post #17062095
Images too big. please check forum rules.

+1
resize your images plz.

genesimmons wrote in post #17062451
shutter speed was crazy high,u could have closed the lens some and got a bit more background in focus and maybe add a bit of contrast,nice photos though

he want less background in focus

A (very) little tips ...
Never put the eyes nor the nose right in the middle of the picture like your first one or on the median line like the last one (i think in english it's called "median" ? not sure )

2nd one I like the most. Watch the expressions, they make them seem more like snapshots than portraits. Also the composition, as mentioned before its a little to centered and there is a person just over his shoulder.

What get's me more than anything is that if this is a "pre-wedding" shoot, why aren't they embracing each other, or even acknowledging one another? As is, it looks like just two people being photographed with no obvious connection to each other...

On a more technical note:

1. The photos seem a tad under-saturated.
2. There's a stray kid in #2
3. The compositions are very flat in both pictures (try getting closer, filling more of the frame with your subjects, more context with backgrounds, higher or lower point-of-views, etc. In short, make it more interesting).

I also agree that I'd like to see more background in-focus. It looks like a lovely location, I'd like to see the context of that location.

The lighting is dull and unflattering. I'm assuming it was an overcast day? True that the sun is out of your control, so then the challenge is to make the light interesting. If you had shot this on a clear day during the golden hours, it would've given you a free pass in many ways as your camera will LOVE that type of lighting for this type of shoot.

Sorry if that's harsh, but it's the only way we learn. Keep at it!

another good idea is to look at some other pre wedding photos and copy their composition and poses

Needs more intimacy.

Jotto123 wrote in post #17070985
Needs more intimacy.

Agreed, it looks like they don't know each other in the last photo.

platforminc wrote in post #17061985
Hi All.

Some of the questions that I have for the pros in the house concerns how to have a shallow DOF when shooting a group of people

Why do you want shallow DOF in a group photo? You want to get your subjects In focus. It's better to have more in focus rather than have parts of faces and eyes out of focus. Photos need appropriate depth of field. Don't always think you need shallow depth of field.

Consider checking out books on the fundamentals of 35mm photography from your library.

You can also use "portrait" mode too! <wink>

I am no pro at this but perhaps my critique can help - what I notice right away is the awkward posing. To me the DOF is fine just be careful with background distractions. Hope this helped!

Need some work on the posing- exposure and cropping