Moody self portrait

I finally have started using my camera on Manual and was wondering if I could get some feedback on this shot.

Thanks in advance

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I like the lighting...

Nice shot, IMHO...

The left eye is too dark. As a result, the catchlight in that eye seems out of place. So, in my opinion the image is rendered too dark here.

I'd agree.

Too dark imo, and I'd be tempted to crop it a little to set your head straight in the image. A few degrees counter-clockwise ought to do it.

Thanks for the feedback.

I should point out the image has not been post processed or rendered, and was shot with available light, lifted of the camera as a raw image with DPP, some sharpness added and converted to monoscale.

I did think about firing up the GIMP and burning out the light in the left eye, and maybe bumping the brightness a little (but just a little), but I'm more interested in getting the basics right with the camera first.

I might have another go at this image, but I'll have to wait for the light to be right at the same time as I'm at that location.

Thanks again

New Photo

I can't really do anything with the light at the moment so I changed the pose, any better?

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don't you have a 1.8 lens?

I would have thought if you shoot at 1.8 and go for the longest shutter time possible, you could get some more light on the scene.

For my tastes it's still far too underexposed, and if you read up on shooting to the right, you will realise that you are causing real signal to noise ratio problems by exposiing this far under, and you'll probably end up with noise and posterisation problems as a result.

Since you're shooting RAW, you can probably add some fill light and bump up the exposure in DPP, which would pull a lot more detail out of the image.

Even if you're going for that moody, low key look, I'd still say this image was way too underexposed.

Adjusted using PSCS3 Image>Adjustments>Levels.

Now his right cheek looks too bright and somewhat posterized. Don't know why, except that the original that we had to work with had a terrible histogram. There was nothing exposed any higher than middle Gray, and 60% of all of the pixels were piled up on values zero through 10. In other words the pixture was predominantly all deep shadow.

Fortunately for the photographer, this is a situation that he can get away with by virtue of artistic license. However, the majority of the critics will probably claim that the the picture is still too underexposed or rendered too dark in the posting.

In any case, I like this version better because his hair is now clearly separted from the ceiling and his face is markedly more 3-dimensional - that is, the facial contours are now more evident.

Edit:
I am extremely sorry that I re-posted your image without permission. I always check to see that permission is on before doing that, and I forgot this time. I am very sorry.

Bob, as I'm sure you already suspect, I believe the very brief reason for the posterisation is because of the fact that so many potential bits in the image have not been utilised. Assuming an average modern camera with a 12 bit sensor (capable of capturing 4096 discrete tonal levels) and assuming that the average RAW can accommodate a dynamic range of approx 5-6 stops, and knowing that of those 4096 steps available, 2048 are taken by the first highlight stop, 1024 for the 2nd stop, and so on down until the lowest exposure stop in the image is assigned only 64 or 128 discrete values to represent its range of tones. Given this image was shot in what would look like alsmot exlusively the lower 2 stops, we're probably talking about something like 200 levels or so to describe the entire image. That's worse than 8 bit greyscale. With that in mind it's hardly surprising that when you try to bring out some detail with fill light, shadows/highlights, or curves, you are going to encounter this posterisation - there's simply not enough tonal variety in the image to create the smooth gradations from one tone to the next.

Irreverent wrote in post #5924243
Bob, as I'm sure you already suspect, I believe the very brief reason for the posterisation is because of the fact that so many potential bits in the image have not been utilised. Assuming an average modern camera with a 12 bit sensor (capable of capturing 4096 discrete tonal levels) and assuming that the average RAW can accommodate a dynamic range of approx 5-6 stops, and knowing that of those 4096 steps available, 2048 are taken by the first highlight stop, 1024 for the 2nd stop, and so on down until the lowest exposure stop in the image is assigned only 64 or 128 discrete values to represent its range of tones. Given this image was shot in what would look like alsmot exlusively the lower 2 stops, we're probably talking about something like 200 levels or so to describe the entire image. That's worse than 8 bit greyscale. With that in mind it's hardly surprising that when you try to bring out some detail with fill light, shadows/highlights, or curves, you are going to encounter this posterisation - there's simply not enough tonal variety in the image to create the smooth gradations from one tone to the next.

Yes, you are preaching to the choir

Actually, 99% of the pixels had values less than middle Gray or 127, so you are probably more correct than you thought

Robert,
I know your trying to help, but you have not done that by post processing the image and posting it, as stated before I have not post processed it myself, because I want to discuss the bit before it comes out of the camera.

Yes I could have done what you did with the image using the GIMP and I have done it plenty of times in the past, but I don't want to be stuck in that loop.

Also correct me if I'm wrong but if I don't have "image editing ok" enabled you shouldn't be editing my image, correct?

Anyway all the non-PP related comments from everyone have been useful, and I'm going back over the reading material I have about metering and exposure.

KarlosDaJackal wrote in post #5926786
Robert,
I know your trying to help, but you have not done that by post processing the image and posting it, as stated before I have not post processed it myself, because I want to discuss the bit before it comes out of the camera.

Yes I could have done what you did with the image using the GIMP and I have done it plenty of times in the past, but I don't want to be stuck in that loop.

Also correct me if I'm wrong but if I don't have "image editing ok" enabled you shouldn't be editing my image, correct?

Anyway all the non-PP related comments from everyone have been useful, and I'm going back over the reading material I have about metering and exposure.

I am extremely sorry, Karlos - For some reason I failed to check the Editing Permission. I apologize and have edited my post accordingly.

Something funny going on here.. There is no EXIF data available for these images.. EXIF data is often erased by post processing..

yogestee wrote in post #5927737
Something funny going on here.. There is no EXIF data available for these images.. EXIF data is often erased by post processing..

nothing funny, when you export from RAW to Anything, you get the choice to include EXIF or not, depending on the format.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #5927383
I am extremely sorry, Karlos - For some reason I failed to check the Editing Permission. I apologize and have edited my post accordingly.

No harm done Robert

Anyway the room was pretty much pitch black which might explain why a lot of people thought it was a bit/very/extremely underexposed, but it probably was extremely underexposed , as the readings on the metre are a bit unreliable at the best of times and the shutter speed probably was too fast for the shot even if I used the 50. I used the 17-55 at about 28 with no tripod as their was not much room to work with, think the f/number might have been something like f/4.0. I know ISO was at 800 cause I was bummed when I saw the picture I was hoping for more noise

I've been reading PhotoGuy's thread about exposure today, so I might try that out if I get some free time this evening. Think I've learned that I spent too much time worrying about camera shake over exposure. Also that the kind of ISO noise i've read about on film is not like the ISO noise produced by an SLR. So I'll probably grab a tripod of some form in the next few weeks also.