Return to Film Portrait Shoot

[Iphotouk]

I've not really shot on film for some considerable years, but I have been feeling like I really wanted to get back into it. I was lucky enough to pick up a Canon AE-1 Program and 50mm f1.8 at a car boot last year for a bargain so on a recent portrait shoot decided to allocate some time to shooting a roll of Portra 160

These are a few of the scans I received back from the lab this week. I would welcome people's thought's and tips for improvements:

 

[StephenM]

As a general tip (based on these six), keep in mind that the subject occupies less than half the frame area, so pay attention to this silent majority. And as a specfic point, take a look at obvious lines and continuations of lines in these photos. And watch outlines.

 

[Harlequin565]

Really like 1 & 2. The colours work nicely and being out of direct sunlight, I think the softer light suits the subject.

#3 needs a bit more work with the model and the background. If you'd stepped 6 inches to the left, you'd have the door framing her and for me, head to camera would have worked better.

The bag in 4 is *all* I can look at so a bit of LR saturation tweakage on that might help.

#5 doesn't quite work for me. Model looks angry and the hard light makes it worse. #6 is better in terms of model connection and pose (more moody, less angry), but the oof thing running up the middle of the shot spoils it for me. Lighting looks best in the first three shots, and #1 is the best of the set for me.

Nice work though! How did you find going back to manual focus? (or are you a digi MF shooter?)

 

[Iphotouk]

Really like 1 & 2. The colours work nicely and being out of direct sunlight, I think the softer light suits the subject.

#3 needs a bit more work with the model and the background. If you'd stepped 6 inches to the left, you'd have the door framing her and for me, head to camera would have worked better.

The bag in 4 is *all* I can look at so a bit of LR saturation tweakage on that might help.

#5 doesn't quite work for me. Model looks angry and the hard light makes it worse. #6 is better in terms of model connection and pose (more moody, less angry), but the oof thing running up the middle of the shot spoils it for me. Lighting looks best in the first three shots, and #1 is the best of the set for me.

Nice work though! How did you find going back to manual focus? (or are you a digi MF shooter?)

Thank you for taking the time to look through and offer some crit.

#3 was a tough one as with the direction of the light, her face would have been in quite a lot of shadow if she turned toward the camera and I didn't have my reflector with me as I was travelling light due to public transport contraints. I definitely take on board about the door and the framing though, and it was just laziness and haste on my part.

#4 I have taken the saturation down a small amount in LR, but i'm waiting to get the negs back and I will have a go at scanning myself in 48bit tiff rather than the Jpg the lab sent me to give a little more control. Still very new to editing negs in LR. So used to RAW files haha.

#6 I liked the pose, look etc, but the oof part of the bench did also annoy me. Unfortunately with the layout of the benches it was unavoidable, hence my effort to throw it oof as much as poss. But it didn't work as well as I expected.

It was as much of an excercise about making sure I could properly expose the shots, and to make sure the camera was ok (as I hadn't ran any film through it previously). But it was a 50/50 digital and analogue shoot. Now I know the camera is ok, i'll be planning some shoots solely on film and put 100% (pardon the pun) into it. I have also recently purchased a Rolleicord TLR (first rolls due back from that this week), and a Bronica ETRS medium format cameras too.

Getting back to manual focus isn't much of a big deal for me as I regularly shoot old glass on my Panasonic G9. Either m42 or FD fitment. And I actually find it easier to focus on the Canon AE1 than my Panasonic G9 lol.