THE LADY'S IN MY LIFE

[..MD..]

Here is my wife and daughter taken in my garage this afternoon with a flashgun ive borrowed and hints or tips greatfully recived.
thanks for looking

my good lady wife.

and my daughter

 

[Yv]

Portraits are definately not my thing, I am lousy at them, but I really like the one of your daughter, but perhaps there is too much back ground at the top?
Your wife is possibly cropped in too close, losing the chin and hence shape of her face I don't think works.
Having said that, exposure looks good and they are nice and sharp as far as I can tell.

 

[h.r.ford]

Your daughter's pic could be great with some more PS work (namely remove that dust!!). Also you could isolate the background and blow it out. It would have helped to move her a little farther away than she is. Love the expression and the detail in the dress is great.

You exposure is ok for your wife though it might be slightly over-flashed but the composition is all wrong. Losing her chin and cutting off her fingers just doesn't work.

Hope I'm not being overly harsh because it is a great start and there is allot to think of while you are taking the pics.

 

[lee]

I like the one of your daughter but think it was a shame that she wasn't looking at the camera.

With regards the one of your wife it seems a bit squashed in using landscape, maybe try cropping in tighter with in a square canvas.

Hope this helps

 

[Chuckurbarla]

As above, you need the chin and rest of the fingers for your wife. Good exposures though.

 

[cjnicolai]

As mentioned above, the shot of your wife has a few flaws. The cropped of chin and hand have already been mentioned, but I'll mention a few more for the sake of improvement.

Always keep in mind that the closest thing to the lens will appear the largest. In this case, because your wife's head is tipped back, her chin is being exaggerated, and her eyes are being diminished. This is pretty directly opposite what you'd typically want to do with a woman's portrait. Instead, have her tip her chin slightly downward, so she looks slightly upward toward the camera. It'll be far more flattering.

Additionally, think about your lighting. Direct light on your subjects face will eliminate modeling shadows, making the face appear wider and less defined than it actually is. Unless your subject has a very thin face (or is a model with ample makeup to give definition) you probably don't want to create this effect. Instead of using the flash, use just the light from the open garage door. You want the light coming from about a 45 degree angle to your subject and from slightly above her. Remember that the closer your subject is to the lightsource, the softer the light will be.

Work on those two things, and your wife will thank you.

- CJ

 

[Grendel]

Lovely shot of your daughter Dave. I actually like the space above, it give the impression she's about to jump into it. As Renee said, it could do with a bit of PS work to really bring out the full potential of the shot but it's definately a winner for me. Oh and what a pretty little girl you have

 

[moomike]

Everyone has already offered sound advice regarding the actual taking of the image so I thought I'd centre on the post processing side of things in case you need to work on an image (obviously in camera is a better place to start.)
(You've really captured some lovely personality in your portraits though mate, you can tell they're both very happy & comfortable with you & your camera )

I'd agree with some of the above comments (get rid of that dust!) & the cropping on the 1st image. I will say that your original exposures nice & even but the actual scene could do with tweaking a bit - eg. a white background for your garage (will set ok with your grey card ).

Hope you don't mind mate but I had a bit of an edit of your 2nd pic (cute kid, obviously gets her looks from her mums side kidding)
Just usual levels, curves, brightness/contrast & sharpen

Images of children (especially if they're yours) are always very subjective & the original images may well be preferred - if for any reason at all you or your wife want the edited pic removed, just give me a shout & I'll sort it out

Edit: the image has actually added more contrast in saving for web & the colours have increased by quite a bit (too orange) I prefer the toning in your original image but the white background would work best IMHO

 

[..MD..]

thanks for all the good advice...
mike the picture can stay thanks
cj. the wife says thanks for the advice now make sure i use it


oh and she gets her looks from me..

mike grey card arrived today off pikeman just need to clean the sensor now....

 

[moomike]

Good stuff mate

 

[Messiah Khan]

Remember that the closer your subject is to the lightsource, the softer the light will be.
- CJ

You've mentioned this point in a few threads now, and im still finding it hard to get my head around. I would have though the further away the light source was the softer it would be as it would have further to scatter and become diffused. Do you know why this happens and could you expend on it a little please.

 

[InaGlo]

Dave, enjoyed the thread & reading everyone's feedback ... looking forward to round 2


MK, I think the answer to your question is something along the lines of, the further a lightsource is from the model the smaller that source becomes and so creates sharper deeper shadow with more fall off.
The closer the lightsource, the bigger it is in relation to the subject and therfore throws a wider beam of light onto the model with less/softer shadow. ... at least thats my understanding of it, Im sure CJ will correct me if Im wrong.

 

[Messiah Khan]

MK, I think the answer to your question is something along the lines of, the further a lightsource is from the model the smaller that source becomes and so creates sharper deeper shadow with more fall off.
The closer the lightsource, the bigger it is in relation to the subject and therfore throws a wider beam of light onto the model with less/softer shadow. ... at least thats my understanding of it, Im sure CJ will correct me if Im wrong.

Ah, ok that would make sense. Cheers Inaglo.

 

[cjnicolai]

Ina is right. The closer the light, the more it wraps around the subject, making the shadows less defined. And the size of the lightsource is dependent on how close it is to the subject.

Consider this. We all know that light on a bright sunny day is harsher than light on an overcast day. Why is that? It's because the clouds on the overcast day turn the sun into a much LARGER light source, which wraps around your subject better.

Always remember that the QUALITY of light and QUANTITY of light are totally different things. So, the closer your subject is to the lightsource, the brighter the scene and the softer the light. Your meter can only tell you how much light you have; it can't tell you whether the light is "good" or "bad."

- CJ

 

[pxl8]

Remember that the closer your subject is to the lightsource, the softer the light will be.

I think it is worth noting that this only applies when the "lightsource" is diffused in some way. Natural light through a window is very different from a naked flashgun head. To get softer lighting the lightsource needs to be bigger relative to the subject. Moving nearer the window will do this, moving closer to the flash head won't.

 

[cjnicolai]

I think it is worth noting that this only applies when the "lightsource" is diffused in some way. Natural light through a window is very different from a naked flashgun head. To get softer lighting the lightsource needs to be bigger relative to the subject. Moving nearer the window will do this, moving closer to the flash head won't.

Actually, that's not exactly correct.

Again, you must separate quality of light vs. quantity of light. It is STILL true in theory, even with an undiffused flash gun, that the closer you are to the subject, the softer it is. The problem is that you could never get a flash gun so close to the subject that the light would appear soft. It just won't happen. A naked flash gun will always be too small to appear soft. Combine that with the fact that a flash gun too close to a subject will almost always result in overexposure (a QUANTITY of light problem) and you can see why you're not going to get soft lighting that way.

A diffused flash will appear slightly softer than a naked one because the light source is bigger. However, unless you are using a very large diffuser (meaning a few feet in size as opposed to a few inches in size) it won't make an enormous difference.

No matter what your light source, the closer it is, the more it will wrap around your subject. The theory is the same.

- CJ

 

[pxl8]

Well the edited version makes more sense - bigger the light the softer the result.

The quanity of light problem is actually tied up in the same laws of physics as the softness and is all to do with the angles involved, if anyone's interested google up some basic raytracer shading examples, esp. Lambert Diffuse and prepare for a headache or two

 

[cjnicolai]

The quanity of light problem is actually tied up in the same laws of physics as the softness and is all to do with the angles involved,

You'd have to convince me of that. When it comes to practical applications in photographic lighting, quantity and quality are quite distinct and different.

 

[pxl8]

I put together a PDF here that hopefully explains in basic terms what is happening with direct lighting. In reality a lot more happening than what I've shown here but in general terms it describes illumination of a surface.

With indirect (bounced/diffused) lighting the rays are scattered to start with and apporach the surface from a range of angles but when you add them all up the result is close to being parallel to the "normal" which is why it appears softer.

Apologies for any headaches I've caused

 

[cjnicolai]

Pxl8, your summary and PDF correctly explain diffusion, but don't say anything at all about quantity of light.

 

[pxl8]

How exactly are you defining the quantity of light? EV or something else?

 

[cjnicolai]

Pxl8, to keep things simple, I'd define quantity of light the way an incident meter does. The amount of light falling on your subject.

 

[pxl8]

If we call the quantity of light EV then the simple version is this:

EV * angle = amount of reflected light.

The example doesn't need to say anything about brightness becuase the angle is just a scalar for how much light is reflected toward the viewer. It doesn't matter how bright or dim the light is as the angle is still the same.

A more complete example would need to take into account of the colour of the light and surface but that would have no effect on how the angle scales the result.

This is a simple example of the impact the angle has on light reflected to the viewer:

The top example has the light 0.75m above the floor but 3m above it in the other. By decreasing the distance between light and subject the dynamic range has increased which is where exposure can be a problem.

 

[cjnicolai]

What you've just demonstrated is that the closer the light source is to the subject, the more it wraps around it. Just as I've said.

I'm honestly not sure what else you're trying to show here?

 

[pxl8]

How is the light in the top example wrapped around the subject more than in the second?

 

[..MD..]

glad you all like the picture...



dave