My First Studio Shots - Comments?

Well, I read everything there is to read about lighting for studio sessions, most of it contradicted the rest of it and I was totally bemused when I walked into the studio on Saturday afternoon.

Luckily I had booked an excellent studio, and the chap who owns it was extremely happy to incorporate a full tutorial on how to get the best shots, lighting and poses, so it was money extremely well spent on studio hire for me.

By the way, if anyone needs a studio in Milton Keynes area, I can heartily recommend http://www.saracenhous​estudio.co.uk - they have a section for the glamour stuff and a portrait studio downstairs - and he makes a good cuppa!

Anyway, I thought I'd don my flame proof suit and ask for your comments on a few of the results. Overall, for my first attempt, I'm pretty happy with them.

I have a few that didn't work out too well, but the most important thing is that I now know why. Also these shots do highlight a particular inadequacy of the 18-55 kit lens - so if you have any suggestions of good portrait lenses, I'm happy to hear them.

Anyway...here they are....love to hear your comments & constructive suggestions....

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Two more.....

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Last for now....

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Lovely results!! I'm green with envy here. Great natural expressions and poses. I think you had a good tutor, they're all keepers. The last one with the cropped jeans is wonderful too.

Gonna grab the phone book and price studio hire out here-- if there is one.

hmm.. focus, subject, background, lighting, yes.. it all seems to be there.

oh.. yes.. Absolutely Great Shots. Love the themes.. and the Expressions are priceless!!

.. Lee (remembering that there are reasons to do studio work..)

great result, and I think the last one is a very original idea....you must be very pleased with them.

Thanks guys...yes I'm overall pretty happy for a first attempt. There's a few things I now know I could have done better - so the second time will be good for me to put them into practice.

So any suggestions for an upgrade to my crappy kit lens for this kind of work then?

Very nice, original shots. I think the color photos are terrific. I would love to see the color version of #2. She's a doll. I really like the composition/posing. Good job.

I just checked the rates at the studio. It would look as if you had best know exactly what poses you wanted before you went in...

Excellent shots. I would suppose most would recommend a 50mm f/1.8 II or, for a bit more money, the 50mm f/1.4 lens. I've been using the former for portrait work with pretty good results.

I've got he nifty-fifty - and it seems to give better results, but not staggeringly so. I tried it on a few shots, but it was a fairly small studio so I couldn't get the same range of shots as I could with the 18-55.

Thanks Dave. I was quite impressed as to how good value they are here. I paid £30 an hour, but he did me a deal of two hours for £50. Now I've done it once and don't need all the basic instructions again, I would be fine with an hour's booking.

I have seen some studios with an impressive kit list for about £15-20 per (US $30-40) - but I guess each country is going to have different rates. Mind you I have seen some studios in London for £700 per hour!

Here's the colour version of the shot you wanted....og and another of my favourites....

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She is sucha a cutie! She surely does how to pose. Did you spent a lot of time on her? The first one, She is a little off, the bear is more focused. I love the one which she is behind her mon's feet, really creative but it is a little dark.

I love that picture where you had converted to b/w but the flower... too bad the face doesn't show more in it, it's a great shot. Well, all are nice, but I really fell in love with that one!

She's a bit of a poser for sure, her mum was great to get her happy to do what i asked, after a couple of helpful pushes from mum, she got really into it - which made my life easier!

You're eagle eyed on the first shot! I'm not sure what happened there, as I focussed on her right eye...maybe she moved before I pressed the button. There's a couple of shots where this happened, so I guess using a smaller aperture will be helpful - but I don't really want to go any lower on the shutter speed (I did all of these at 125).

Yes I love that one too....it was a shame that she didn't really understand what I wanted her to do with the flower...and this was the best shot of her with it - what I wanted was her looking into the flower, but the result is OK!

Andy,

These are all very nice. As far as a good portrait lens, you may want to consider the Tamron 28-75 2.8. It is one of my sharpest lens I own and it can be had for aroun $375. It also makes a great walkaround/event lens. I know a lot of purist prefer primes for portrait work but the zoom really helps with being able to recompose a shot and not moving around. This is very important for me in my cramped studio space. As far as your shutter speeds, keep in mind that when you are shooting with flash/strobes shutter speed does not play much of a part at all (except if you are trying to get some ambient light in the picture). What controls your lighting is your apperture and light power. When using a white background which I intend to blow out anyways, I do not worry much about using smaller appertures.

Ovi

Those are so great. I love the one with the flower. What a cute little girl. Good work!