A couple of my daughter

macs

macs

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794
Name
Rich
Edit My Images
Yes
Over the last couple of months I've taken a couple of shots of my daughter that I'm really happy with but I thought I'd share them with other photographers who might be a little more familiar with portraits for some critique. She's only 1 so getting her to stay still is quite hard at times.

My little petal by Richard McBrayne, on Flickr

My little princess by Richard McBrayne, on Flickr
 
She's gorgeous and you've used the right aperture to obtain a good depth-of-field, keeping her in focus and nicely blurring the background a little. I like both pics. I'm no expert on lighting, so can't offer any CC there, but the overall sharpness and composition looks good in both (good use of empty space in the area she is facing).
 
Lovely moment captured in the first. Shooting from a slightly different angle would have given you bluebells on the right of her too rather than a house (easily said after the event I know).

The second shot looks a little soft to me. Shooting at F1.8, focus is so critical, and I'd generally shoot a little narrower to give you a little more DoF especially when kids are moving. They look great when you nail it, but the keeper rate (for me at least) was too low at this aperture. My son is 13 months so I know how unlikley your daughter is to keep still let alone pose for you. You have 'edit my images' set to yes, so I've applied a little sharpening and increased the exposure a little on the second so you can see what I mean. It's how I'd have edited it, but may not be to your tastes. If you have the raw or original JPG you may get better results than this.

NOT MY PHOTO_TP_edit by Ian J Bradshaw, on Flickr

Will remove if you don't want an edit showing on your thread.
 
Thanks for the comments guys. I know what you mean Morbid about the narrow DoF with 1.8. I might try 2.2 or 2.8 or so and see how I get on.

For me, your edit is over exposed but that's just my taste I guess (i'm more than happy for it to be up) I have selectively sharpened the eyes and other vital details but maybe they could do with a slightly stronger sharpen.
 
macs said:
Thanks for the comments guys. I know what you mean Morbid about the narrow DoF with 1.8. I might try 2.2 or 2.8 or so and see how I get on.

For me, your edit is over exposed but that's just my taste I guess (i'm more than happy for it to be up) I have selectively sharpened the eyes and other vital details but maybe they could do with a slightly stronger sharpen.
Click to expand...

You're probably right about the exposure being over, that's just personal taste. Looking back at my shots I was at around 2.8 to 3.2 for most unless I needed really shallow DoF for something a bit 'arty'. You still get the blurred background and if you are close to the subject even F4 is enough to have one eye sharp and the other slightly OOF. I rarley use the 50mm 1.8 since getting a 17-40 L - the AF is so much more reliable and quicker, makes it easier with the moving targets that toddlers provide!
 
First is cute.

Second has real potential but is underexposed. I wouldn't really agree with Ian about exposure being personal taste. I mean, something is either exposed correctly or it isn't. Not sure whether it's been compressed when you uploaded it to flickr, but it's also very soft.
 
UaeExile said:
Second has real potential but is underexposed. I wouldn't really agree with Ian about exposure being personal taste. I mean, something is either exposed correctly or it isn't. Not sure whether it's been compressed when you uploaded it to flickr, but it's also very soft.
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Bad choice of words on my part there. On the monitor I am using at work the edit I did looks correctly exposed to me (maybe I'm wrong, I often am!), but if the OP prefers the image darker (because that was how the ambient light in the room was when it was taken, or for whatever reason) then that's down to him.
 
Morbid said:
Bad choice of words on my part there. On the monitor I am using at work the edit I did looks correctly exposed to me (maybe I'm wrong, I often am!), but if the OP prefers the image darker (because that was how the ambient light in the room was when it was taken, or for whatever reason) then that's down to him.
Click to expand...

I think your exposure is about right. Just the sharpening has made it more of a painting than a picture. Probably more down to the fact it's saved from the web though.
 
Thanks for the comments guys. I'll take a look at increasing the exposure in the second one. I never put the full resolution images on Flickr so it will have been compressed a little bit too.
 
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