weekly pjm1's TP52 in 2016 - week 31 Fauna

Dark Knight said:
Aweee love that Paul, good effort with the manual focusing, much harder nowadays with the modern lenses not having the aid like in the old days :D

Your girl looks like she has is concentrating soooo much bless her :)
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Hiya Dean, thanks so much for the kind comments... the biggest thing I find with modern lenses is the focus rings aren't damped, so you're spinning something very lightweight - which is fast to turn, but takes you a bit of toing and froing to nail the spot as you overshoot. Of course, the most accurate system I've found are the bellows on the Mamiya (although the 2" viewfinder kind of helps!)

It was amazing how they managed to remember all the dances - even the preschool girls (2 to 5) had three dances to memorise. I was very proud of her!

Ian W said:
'Not so simple' indeed! Good effort given the circumstances especially, Paul.

Does the D750 have any manual focusing aids?
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Thanks Ian - I should have quizzed you for some tips beforehand! It does have a focus indicator in the viewfinder but TBH I didn't find it that helpful. It's stuck in the bottom left corner and I found it easier to judge focus by eye on the subject itself, which was centre of frame, rather than cast my eyes down to the focus indicator. With practice I'm sure it'd become more useful but hopefully I won't need to that much...

Stupidly I've remember I have a magnifier lens which fits over my viewfinder. It is quite subtle, maybe 1.2-1.4x but it probably would have helped here. I was playing with it a couple of weeks ago as well! (it's a hangover from my Pentax stuff but just happens to fit)

Cheers (y)
 
What a princess!! ... but what I love about this is all the OOF kids in the BG. (y)
 
d00d said:
What a princess!! ... but what I love about this is all the OOF kids in the BG. (y)
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Thanks David.

And thank you for recognising what I tried to keep in the image, too. Ordinarily I would have cropped the photo so her eyes were comfortably in the top half of the frame as that usually looks more settling. However, that would have cropped straight through the girl behind at an inelegant place, so I've compromised on the placement of my daughter to maintain the context of the other kids being there.

Thanks for looking and commenting (y)
 
Not sure I would have done half as good even with unrestricted access. A beautiful image of an angelic little girl. Well done Paul - great effort for Simple ... if you'd forgive the contrariness of that last statement !?!
 
Carl Ayling said:
Not sure I would have done half as good even with unrestricted access. A beautiful image of an angelic little girl. Well done Paul - great effort for Simple ... if you'd forgive the contrariness of that last statement !?!
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Thank you Carl, you're always very generous with your comments! (Not sure I 100% deserve it a lot of the time, but thank you anyway :) )

That faulty lens has now been swapped for something a bit heavier. Stupid me!! (although at least the AF works on this one...)
 
Good job, I don't think the slight softness really detracts from the image.
 
Very nice indeed Paul love the lighting and the look of concentration on your little girls face
 
Great story Paul (I had read about the lens woes on another thread).
You only notice the slightly missed focus with you pixel peep so print it on Canvas and stick it up on the wall instead.

I'm not keen on the shadow at the bottom though, is there another crop in there?
 
LC2 said:
Great story Paul (I had read about the lens woes on another thread).
You only notice the slightly missed focus with you pixel peep so print it on Canvas and stick it up on the wall instead.

I'm not keen on the shadow at the bottom though, is there another crop in there?
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Thanks Tim - appreciated!

Yes, I'm not 100% on the shadow but I can't really lighten it because there are also people's heads in there somewhere (the row in front)! A crop may well work and I'll have a look at that. I don't want to lose much off the bottom otherwise her eyes will end up even lower in frame, but I'll have play... Thanks!
 
Beautiful shot of your little girl you can see that she is certainly taking her dancing seriously.
 
Ok, this submission is a complete cop-out... On so many levels.

1) it's another photo of my daughter... I'm sorry - I was planning to do something completely different for this theme and two really quite decent ideas. I'll maybe do my reshoot of Signs later in the week!
2) it's not even taken by me... so how can it be in my 52?!
3) I've unfairly delivered a photo which I know all of you genuinely won't have the heart to criticise, so I'm going to have to do it for you ;)

So - SIGN.

In this case, sign of the future...

This photo was taken by my five year old. Now, I'm not being a bragging parent here because I did, to be fair, set up the lighting for him and also position the camera and set the aperture and shutter speed. All he had to do was press the shutter. But, he decided to move the camera, change the aperture (obviously wanted a touch more depth of field as he nudged it a 1/3 of a stop) and somehow turn an image of his sister who was laughing into a picture which looks like her in utter terror. So well done him for eliciting that particular emotion! Perhaps it's indeed a sign of his talent for getting his models to engage with the camera in a very Hitchcockian way in the future...


Week 25: Sign of the future... Ollie's photo of Izzy by Paul M, on Flickr
 
susiejb said:
Hi Paul, Yes it is a shoehorn :) BUT it is a super photo so well done to him. I think for the theme if you could have taken a photo of him taking the photo it would have been spot on
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Brilliant idea, Susie. Hope he catches the bug, Paul. At least with your kit handed down to him it'll minimise the cost and allow you the perfect excuse to upgrade in future :)

Ps great expression!
 
Another cracking image of your daughter Paul :)

Love the expression, but I'm not sure if she was laughing or screaming?
 
Thats a great image of your daughter and a joint effort with your son, what could be better, only crit slightly sloping floor, don't know which one of you was responsible but hopefully one of you was punished :p
 
Great idea Paul lovely photo.love the expression on your Daughters face. Your son has obviously being paying attention to what you do!
 
Great capture, but looking forward to the reshoot.
 
chrispp said:
Paul, that's so unfair ! :( Great though. No criticism from me. :clap:
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Thanks Chris... to be fair, I did help him a bit ;)

Ian W said:
Brilliant idea, Susie. Hope he catches the bug, Paul. At least with your kit handed down to him it'll minimise the cost and allow you the perfect excuse to upgrade in future :)

Ps great expression!
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Hi Ian, yes, I definitely want to try out that reshoot idea - my eldest has now finished school (well, prep) for the year so he's around more!

Cobra said:
Another cracking image of your daughter Paul :)

Love the expression, but I'm not sure if she was laughing or screaming?
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Thanks Chris and sorry it's yet another image of her :) I think she was laughing but normally when the two of them are together it's more screams!

alsjazzera said:
Thats a great image of your daughter and a joint effort with your son, what could be better, only crit slightly sloping floor, don't know which one of you was responsible but hopefully one of you was punished :p
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Thanks Allan. Yes, the sloping floor was because I wasn't shooting perpendicular to the back wall, which meant when she stood straight the floor sloped. If I'd corrected it, she'd have been leaning. I suppose I could have done some PS skew/distortion though...

Downton Mini said:
Great idea Paul lovely photo.love the expression on your Daughters face. Your son has obviously being paying attention to what you do!
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Cheers Mark - yes, but of a cop-out but never mind!

d00d said:
Great capture, but looking forward to the reshoot.
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Thanks David. I will try, if only work weren't so manic right now! (Which is also why I've been so lax at catching up on all of your threads...)

I will definitely try a reshoot of it, but in the mean time here is my favourite image from the same shoot - I love the lighting on her face, even though she's not looking at camera...


Izzy Father's Day shoot 1 by Paul M, on Flickr
 
pjm1 said:
I think she was laughing but normally when the two of them are together it's more screams!
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Just as a heads up, I remember it well, and it doesn't stop until one moves out.
No need to thank me, just a tip from one parent to another :D
 
Hi Paul. I like the lighting and posture of the second but the animated facial expression in the first is awesome and an image I'm sure will be referred to for years as illustrating her character ha ha. :clap:
 
Carl Ayling said:
Hi Paul. I like the lighting and posture of the second but the animated facial expression in the first is awesome and an image I'm sure will be referred to for years as illustrating her character ha ha. :clap:
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Thanks Carl, comments appreciated as always. The second pic was just stuck up there as the "reason" for having the shoot in the first place, but Ollie (her big brother) wanted to take a picture and I'm all up for encouraging that. Which gave me the idea for the theme (y)

And yes, she's a feisty one alright.
 
Love the look on her face in the first, certainly signals trouble. I like the sense of motion in the second and as you say the lighting.
 
sirch said:
Love the look on her face in the first, certainly signals trouble. I like the sense of motion in the second and as you say the lighting.
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chrispp said:
Like the reshoot ! nice frame and angle, light. She seems to be really enjoying the dancing
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Dark Knight said:
Both cracking photo's them Paul, nicely set up for your lad to take, I agree with the lighting on the second image, but love the expression on the first image, I'd print them and have them on your wall if I was you - Super photo's :clap:
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Thanks Chris, Chris & Dean :) It was a bit of a cop out and I did have a better idea for Sign but maybe next time... need to crack on with Flora first!
 
Week 26 Flora

No kids this week. No silliness. Ultra simple and undeniably on theme.

But maybe a bit boring as a result of all of those things :)



Lit from frame right with a low power mains head firing through a ridiculously oversized softbox. Box was feathered towards the camera and a silver reflector (again, too large really for the purpose) was frame left, slightly further away from the subject than the light was on the right.

And that's it. A bit of playing around in post to accentuate the fall-off.

And now all hosted on my website :)
 
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Sorry, for me there is too much fall-off towards the top which tends to just fizzle out in the black background
 
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