Some I took today

Hell on earth

Hell on earth

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Name
Helen
Edit My Images
No
. nothing
 
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Why assume it's the lens? They look slightly out of focus to me.
 
Looks soft. Hmmm.. you've removed EXIF. What aperture, and what lens was it? The images on Flickr are only 2048 pixels, and seem very compressed, so it's hard to say.

I find it unlikely to be the lens at fault. It could be a AF fine tune issue maybe.

Most lenses are at their best around f8 ish... what aperture was this shot at? If this is studio flash then there's no reason to be shooting at wide apertures if that's what you're doing.

Posting up a link to the RAW file will help. You can upload it to http://www.speedyshare.com/
 
I think they all look over exposed. It shows on the skin. I can also see some sloppy brushwork where you've sorted out to background in PP, for example around her hip on #3, but its visible on all of them
 
Agreed. There's much going on with the RAW file that's not doing the OP any favours I think.
 
boyfalldown said:
I think they all look over exposed. It shows on the skin. I can also see some sloppy brushwork where you've sorted out to background in PP, for example around her hip on #3, but its visible on all of them
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Yes was a bit rushed and tired last night, doing them again this morning
As for exposer pp in LR looked worse than in camera

All are at 1/125 f8
 
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Hell on earth said:
Yes was a bit rushed and tired last night, doing them again this morning
As for exposer pp in LR looked worse than in camera
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Never trust your camera screen. Learn to read histograms, and your light meter. Never just chimp away looking at the screen. Was this flash? If so, how were you metering it?
 
Hell on earth said:
Yes was a bit rushed and tired last night, doing them again this morning
As for exposer pp in LR looked worse than in camera

All are at 1/125 f8
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If you're running a studio, never show unfinished work. You also should be able to light a white background without mopping up round the subject
 
Pookeyhead said:
Never trust your camera screen. Learn to read , and your light meter. Never just chimp away looking at the screen. Was this flash? If so, how were you metering it?
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I meant the as shot exposer I use a LM and histograms

Main light 100x100 softbox front right 45 above, fill light left unbrella
 
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boyfalldown said:
If you're running a studio, never show unfinished work. You also should be able to light a white background without mopping up round the subject
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Thanks for the advice
I'm still learning and for that I need feedback
 
All a tad soft which at f8 should be tack sharp and you chopped the feet in the second image and the fingers in the 3rd image :shrug:and youre running a studio?????

Les ;)
 
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Sorry to be harsh but if I went to professional studio and was presented with these I would be horrified!
Well done for having a go but as said they are out of focus and cropped so tightly fingers and toes are missing, also the post processing really is quite poor.
As said sorry but I'm quite shocked, I would really recommend going on some lighting courses or studio training days it would help you a lot.
 
I think some of you are taking things out of prespective, I'm very new to studio work
I don't mind Critique but some are so far up their own arse it's coming across as pure elitism or little boys with to much gob

I'm making mistakes for sure, I'll learn, sadly some on here already think they know it all, but have learned nothing it seems....

I know there is a problem with focus, I said that in the first post, pp needs to be better, I said that too

I'm shooting at the right setting but I know they don't look right ? :shrug:

So far there has been little real advice worth noting :( :thumbsdown:
 
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I hear you, Helen. You made it clear that you are just starting the studio and presumably posted the photos here seeking helpful feedback. That is a courageous thing to do - put your work out there for people to critique.

I don't know whether you charged for these photos - you haven't said anywhere that you did. Either way, it seems reasonable to me that you would need to spend a bit of time getting the studio set up and learning your way around it.

I am not a studio portrait photographer by any stretch of the imagination, so can't offer any useful advice myself, except stick with it and keep learning. Good luck!
 
Hi Helen

You'll find some very helpful advice here in general and also in the lighting section. The more you do, coupled with a willingness to learn, the better you'll get (y)

Like the (ahem) wise footballers say, don't let the praise get to your head or the criticism get you down.

To save a bit of pp work, maybe try to light the background (depending on how much room/strobes you have). Try a tripod with the VR off single point focus on the eyes - see of its the lens or not.

As said composition wise (I'm often very guilty of this) avoid chopping off limbs/appendages/heads :LOL:

Keep going!

S
 
MJWC1 said:
I hear you, Helen. You made it clear that you are just starting the studio and presumably posted the photos here seeking helpful feedback. That is a courageous thing to do - put your work out there for people to critique.

I don't know whether you charged for these photos - you haven't said anywhere that you did. Either way, it seems reasonable to me that you would need to spend a bit of time getting the studio set up and learning your way around it.

I am not a studio portrait photographer by any stretch of the imagination, so can't offer any useful advice myself, except stick with it and keep learning. Good luck!
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No I'm not charging and am in the process of setting up, one guy did pay me for a photo he wanted.
 
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Sir SR said:
Hi Helen

You'll find some very helpful advice here in general and also in the lighting section. The more you do, coupled with a willingness to learn, the better you'll get (y)

Like the (ahem) wise footballers say, don't let the praise get to your head or the criticism get you down.

To save a bit of pp work, maybe try to light the background (depending on how much room/strobes you have). Try a tripod with the VR off single point focus on the eyes - see of its the lens or not.

As said composition wise (I'm often very guilty of this) avoid chopping off limbs/appendages/heads :LOL:

Keep going!

S
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Some but many are just coming across as elitist with no real help
 
I'm not an expert by any means but my guess would be that it's not going to take that much to rectify the faults in these photos. For example, someone mentioned over exposure. Obviously, that's easily corrected and I suspect other issues will be nowhere near insurmountable.

In any case, these photos are better than my first attempts at portraiture which were so bad they'll never see the light of day.
 
DrGed said:
I'm not an expert by any means but my guess would be that it's not going to take that much to rectify the faults in these photos. For example, someone mentioned over exposure. Obviously, that's easily corrected and I suspect other issues will be nowhere near insurmountable.

In any case, these photos are better than my first attempts at portraiture which were so bad they'll never see the light of day.
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Thank you :)
 
nothing
 
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As far as I can see, these shots are a lot sharper than the first three. What did you change round on the AF?

The lighting looks better too.

I would be interested to hear what other people have to say about these but I do think they are improvement on the earlier ones.
 
The dog shots are the best.

Hi Helen. As said, there are a few oof. Aim to get good focus in the eyes, that's important. Ignore the negative comments but take on board the constructive ones. Watch as many youtube vids and practice with what you've got. I've just managed to get hold of a head of a mannequin to practice all the various lighting techniques (cos my family are unwilling)

Many of my studio pics are pretty good...but tbh, they're safe also. Until I come out my comfort zone and become more creative then I'm going to learn little
 
Thanks Ged and Paul

I still think they are a little soft... AF-s single point, focus on the face, so maybe it is the lens

I moved the lights away by about another foot but I don't really understand why a 100x2 softbox with both defusers, would still glare when reading just under f8 to the box and f8 to the camera (ISO 100 1/125 ) :shrug:
maybe I should have posted this thread in lighting

H
 
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Dog images are reasonably sharp but the shots of the girl are not. They're back focused somewhere between her and the red chair. The chair is sharper than she is.

This is either user error or a AF focus accuracy issue. I doubt there's anything optically wrong with that lens.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Dog images are reasonably sharp but the shots of the girl are not. They're back focused somewhere between her and the red chair. The chair is sharper than she is.

This is either user error or a AF focus accuracy issue. I doubt there's anything optically wrong with that lens.
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Thanks David, I'm not sure how to rectfy ? these were taken on a tripod

H
 
Sir SR said:
Was it a vr lens - vr on a tripod can occasionally cause error?

S
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Hmm Im not sure now if the vr was on or off, so many things to think about I forgot to check.

But even so, while using a tripod for testing I don't want to shoot everything on one
 
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boyfalldown said:
A tripod won't help with focusing issues. The first, and most obvious question is what is your focus point over?
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At ?... the face
focul plane being level (as I can)
 
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As a referance to my focusing this is tack sharp with the same camera and lens hand held




It's interesting that those that were so quick to slate me, don't have an answer Hmm...
 
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A couple of months ago I was banging my head off the wall with pretty much the same problem. Photos I took in natural light were O.K., especially the ones closer in but under continuous light indoors my shots were dreadful. Sharpness and exposure were awful.

One thing I learned, which you may already know, was to switch off image stabilisation when using a tripod. I always thought that using a tripod would get rid of camera shake and I couldn't believe it when pictures I took using a tripod were blurred. I googled "camera shake with tripod" and that's how I found out what to do. It's ridiculously counter intuitive but it works. Sorry if you already know this.

Regarding sharpness... ... I am still, for the time being, using the kit lens that came with my camera. It's fine for head & shoulder shots but for full body shots it's not as good as I'd like it. The consensus of opinion is that a prime 50mm lens would be sharper so I think that'll be my next purchase when funds allow. Again, I don't know how much you know but a little bit of sharpness can be added using the high pass filter in Photoshop and although it needs to be used sparingly it can noticeably improve a photo.

I've found that exposure, when photographing faces can be tricky. It seems all to easy to have most of the face exposed O.K. only to find one small region is over exposed almost to the point of being "whited" out.

Finally, you'll be glad to hear, the biggest jump in progress I made was to switch from using continuous lighting in softboxes and go to off camera flash. I bought an inexpensive Chinese speed light, bought a bracket and a shoot through white umbrella and, using them mounted on the lighting stand I already had, tried again. The results were a quantum leap better than my previous shots. I bought radio triggers (again, Chinese) but a cable is a cheaper alternative.

I hope this is helpful : it's just my recent experience, though, and I'm clearly no expert. Sorry if it's bored you.

Ged
 
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