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psylent posted:When doing full length shots of people, I have this really terrible habit of cutting off their ankles. I don't know what the gently caress is wrong with me. Yes. Very, very alone. My similar problem is causing keystoning because I'm trying too hard to get the whole body in without moving too much.
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Mar 30, 2010 13:25
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psylent posted:When doing full length shots of people, I have this really terrible habit of cutting off their ankles. I don't know what the gently caress is wrong with me. At least it's better than cropping off mid-foot. It's a rough window. I find only cropping mid thigh really looks okay. So, it's either full body, mid-thigh, or portrait typically.
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Mar 30, 2010 13:47
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psylent posted:When doing full length shots of people, I have this really terrible habit of cutting off their ankles. I don't know what the gently caress is wrong with me.
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Mar 30, 2010 14:13
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It's me again, posting my people pictures and asking for feedback. This time: some of my friends, some from class. All film, all from my Mamiya TLR. Which means: most are looking up.       
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Apr 2, 2010 01:47
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I am just starting out and I'm terrible and I have no idea what I'm doing:  Click here for the full 683x1024 image. 
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Apr 2, 2010 06:50
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Riiiiight... Mind if I play with some post on these? A RAW would even be funner...
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Apr 2, 2010 08:12
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Im still getting into this whole thing so im mostly working on getting the right look before i go into making the images interesting. I framed it a bit tight, cutting off her head but i still like it.  Very happy with this one of my friend garrett.
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Apr 2, 2010 08:32
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OJ.SImpson posted:Im still getting into this whole thing so im mostly working on getting the right look before i go into making the images interesting. Nailed the focus, nice lights in the eyes...now get in there and fix the discolored tooth.
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Apr 2, 2010 14:04
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dunkman posted:I am just starting out and I'm terrible and I have no idea what I'm doing: You and me both, brother. Merch shoot for a local web site:    Rest of set: http://www.mikechow.com/Nature-and-Stuff/Baked-in-BC-March-19-2010/11702287_ByKXx
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Apr 2, 2010 18:15
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HPL, I think those are a little bit too contrasty. maybe because they are too warm/red, I mostly see it in the more yellow areas (which effects the red areas...)
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Apr 2, 2010 18:23
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notlodar posted:HPL, I think those are a little bit too contrasty. maybe because they are too warm/red, I mostly see it in the more yellow areas (which effects the red areas...) I had to crank up the contrast a bit because of the white seamless. I was getting light spill around the edges of the models because there wasn't enough space to get them far enough from the background plus it was rather foggy in there so the whole room was diffusing light. I agree with you about the yellow areas. One culprit in the third photo was that I was using hard light (gridded 285HVs) so that made the transition from light to dark a lot harsher. Plus by the time I was doing the black seamless shots, it was even more foggy in there as you can see from the light area on the right side of the photo. I don't know why, but every studio-type of shoot I've done seems to end up as a huge foggy haze by the end. I considered going with less saturation, but I really dug the bright colour of the lipstick and the rich blue of the laboratory glassware. The models weren't exactly olive-skinned sun worshippers, so turning down the saturation also made them look incredibly pale. Plus I was going for more of a film-like colour cast. I used the Provia colour setting in DxO Optics. I definitely could have put a little more work into the post-processing but I wanted to try to see how good I could get it with minimal post work. In the future, I'd definitely go with less contrast if only because I'd get the lighting better. This was the first time I've tried a seamless background shoot.
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Apr 2, 2010 18:39
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Have you guys... tried reading portraiture books? A lot of the more recent ones are pretty bad, almost as if it's not even really trying.
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Apr 2, 2010 21:21
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Oprah Haza posted:Have you guys... tried reading portraiture books? A lot of the more recent ones are pretty bad, almost as if it's not even really trying. Are you talking about portraiture books being bad, or the pics in here? My mother got a weird haircut and asked me to photograph her, but it just made her look consistently like admiral ackbar so I gave up.
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Apr 2, 2010 21:29
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Paragon8 posted:Are you talking about portraiture books being bad, or the pics in here? Some of the pics lately. I understand that you're not professionals and that it's a learning experience, but a lot of these have no composition and are really flat. I'm not saying that I'm great either, but please put some thought into your work guys!
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Apr 2, 2010 22:11
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I really like these recent ones. I'm definitely a fan of high contrast stuff when done well. Could someone advise me on blowing out the background hotshoe flashes? Is it doable or should I just go for AlienBees?
dik-dik fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Apr 2, 2010 |
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Apr 2, 2010 22:19
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dik-dik posted:I really like these recent ones. I'm definitely a fan of high contrast stuff when done well. Could someone advise me on blowing out the background hotshoe flashes? Is it doable or should I just go for AlienBees? It's doable.   Both of these I used a strobe to get a seamless white background. The first one the hair is a little hosed up because she was too close to the wall as I had no space. It's also not overexposed that's intentional processing as just a practice. The second, the wall wasn't quite white enough for me so I used a selective exposure mask to blow it out. These aren't prefect examples though, I'm sure they wouldn't pass muster for Oprah Haze - but I think with a little experimentation it's possible to get good results out of a two flash set up. Paragon8 fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Apr 2, 2010 |
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Apr 2, 2010 22:32
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Paragon8 posted:
I actually think these are pretty well done for a two-strobe setup. The second is better imo. I've taken great portraits with using a single speedlite, it's just all about thinking about how you're going to shoot instead of just clicking away. You can get stellar results with a reflector if you're low on strobes (I personally have two and use a reflector, would like a third). The main gripe I have is that we're seeing portraits with bad posing/angles and in some we're just cutting people's faces off unintentionally.
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Apr 3, 2010 00:11
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Oprah Haza posted:I actually think these are pretty well done for a two-strobe setup. The second is better imo. I've taken great portraits with using a single speedlite, it's just all about thinking about how you're going to shoot instead of just clicking away. You can get stellar results with a reflector if you're low on strobes (I personally have two and use a reflector, would like a third). The main gripe I have is that we're seeing portraits with bad posing/angles and in some we're just cutting people's faces off unintentionally. Yeah, I know what you mean. I didn't really post for crit, I basically know what's wrong with them - just demonstrating that strobes can be useful. framing is always an important thing to think about. I tend to shoot really tight on the face for 3/4ths. Unfortunately I don't really have many friends in the country I moved to, so finding models is a bit more tricky. flickr is a great resource for finding great portraits in almost every style. As annoying as all the pretty young girls doing nothing but self portraits are, there are some great ones doing it. Paragon8 fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 3, 2010 |
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Apr 3, 2010 00:45
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Paragon8 posted:Yeah, I know what you mean. I didn't really post for crit, I basically know what's wrong with them - just demonstrating that strobes can be useful. Yeah and every now and then one of them goes pro: http://www.flickr.com/photos/larajade/
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Apr 3, 2010 00:54
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dik-dik posted:Yeah and every now and then one of them goes pro: http://www.flickr.com/photos/larajade/ The line between pro and amateur is so thin now. It can be really frustrating. She's great, and until recently I hadn't really been exploring flickr that much. It's astounding how there are people with 700+ comments on pictures. I mean admittedly 300 of those are "nice tonez" 300 are "you're so pretty!" and the remaining 100 are probably "I want to lick your feet" or "I want to eat your babies" I think I might start a photography e/n thread
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Apr 3, 2010 01:31
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For my shots, I was a little restricted in that the shoot was largely for catalog-type shots with emphasis on the shirts, specifically the logo, so that's why they're more squarely posed than I might have done normally.
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Apr 3, 2010 01:51
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Paragon8 posted:The line between pro and amateur is so thin now. It can be really frustrating. She's great, and until recently I hadn't really been exploring flickr that much. It's astounding how there are people with 700+ comments on pictures. Oh, maybe I should've included this: http://www.larajade.co.uk/1024/01portfolio.html She's definitely over the line between pro and amateur. HPL posted:For my shots, I was a little restricted in that the shoot was largely for catalog-type shots with emphasis on the shirts, specifically the logo, so that's why they're more squarely posed than I might have done normally. I really like them. Care to describe the lighting setup you used?
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Apr 3, 2010 02:50
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dik-dik posted:I really like these recent ones. I'm definitely a fan of high contrast stuff when done well. Could someone advise me on blowing out the background hotshoe flashes? Is it doable or should I just go for AlienBees? There's a lot of distance between a good high contrast portrait and most of what's been posted lately, which have just looked like Mall Portraits.
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Apr 3, 2010 03:05
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dik-dik posted:I really like them. Care to describe the lighting setup you used? For the white background ones, one 285HV on both sides of the models, aimed at the background at roughly 45 degrees. One Sunpak 544 above the model on a softbox aimed down. Nothing major. Reichstag posted:There's a lot of distance between a good high contrast portrait and most of what's been posted lately, which have just looked like Mall Portraits. I'll be the first to admit I've got a lot to learn. I appreciate notlodar's comments because until I posted the photos here, everyone else that has seen them has been going bonkers over them, but they're not photographers so it's great to hear nitpicks.
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Apr 3, 2010 03:22
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HPL posted:I had to crank up the contrast a bit because of the white seamless. I was getting light spill around the edges of the models because there wasn't enough space to get them far enough from the background plus it was rather foggy in there so the whole room was diffusing light. I agree with you about the yellow areas. One culprit in the third photo was that I was using hard light (gridded 285HVs) so that made the transition from light to dark a lot harsher. Plus by the time I was doing the black seamless shots, it was even more foggy in there as you can see from the light area on the right side of the photo. I don't know why, but every studio-type of shoot I've done seems to end up as a huge foggy haze by the end.  Getting a perfectly white seamless is tough with a limited space, even worse when you have less than 4 lights without the right modifiers. A few photoshop masks (curves and saturation) may be able to do what you want with the photos while maintaining control, but I don't know if that's more work than you want to do.
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Apr 3, 2010 09:19
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dik-dik posted:Oh, maybe I should've included this: http://www.larajade.co.uk/1024/01portfolio.html Oh, I didn't mean in terms of quality - just in how quick you can jump from amateur to pro. Like Lara Jade probably didn't have to spend 5 years assisting to make her bones but rather got noticed on flickr and handed the keys to a studio.
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Apr 3, 2010 13:27
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notlodar posted:I think the fog came from all the pot It was tobacco, I swear!  Yes, if I were to do it all over again, I'd probably have one flash aimed at each quarter of the background. My flashes have 1/8 plug adapters so it would be easy to rig them up to only use one radio trigger per side.
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Apr 3, 2010 15:23
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Paragon8 posted:Oh, I didn't mean in terms of quality - just in how quick you can jump from amateur to pro. Like Lara Jade probably didn't have to spend 5 years assisting to make her bones but rather got noticed on flickr and handed the keys to a studio. I literally had not picked up anything but a lovely ultra-slim point and shoot until August of 2009. These "studio" shots are done in my living room, and she was literally the 2nd person I'd ever shot in it. I'm not even sure reading a book would help me at this point.
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Apr 3, 2010 17:29
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dunkman posted:I literally had not picked up anything but a lovely ultra-slim point and shoot until August of 2009. oh man, I'm not criticizing anyone in here I was just responding to Opera Haze 
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Apr 3, 2010 18:25
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Honestly the speed with which people around here seem to gain traction photographically is kind of amazing-- it took me years to get basic principles down that seem to take weeks for a lot of people.
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Apr 3, 2010 18:27
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TsarAleksi posted:Honestly the speed with which people around here seem to gain traction photographically is kind of amazing-- it took me years to get basic principles down that seem to take weeks for a lot of people. It helps when the information is easier to find and discuss than ever before. Sites like Strobist are huge for that. Plus the instant feedback of digital is a big help.
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Apr 3, 2010 18:32
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I guess the word "seem" is pretty operative in that sentence. When you spend years learning how to take photographs by yourself you learn much more than just how to take pictures that other people like to look at. You develop a personal sense of aesthetic, you learn to understand the form and its limits, why things happen the way do and how you can manipulate things to create the image that you want. Moreover you learn from what you see and you get a sense of what people are doing and what they have done so that you can draw your own photography from that collective experience. I find that people who "get traction within weeks" generally just get that by being fed a set of rules and tutorial instructions from blogs, forums, and flickr and all they really learn is how to create one image and, because they have no personal aesthetic, they are always unsure of the "quality" of that image. It isn't impossible to develop these things after the fact but I feel that it is much easier to learn later on and that there is a generally more even ground to ones photography if they develop first by taking photos of what they want purely for the fun with no regard for what is correct or right and over time developing their personal image organically. I wouldn't say necessarily that one way is right and the other is wrong but my two cents generally amounts to having knowledge before trying to impress people by being smart.
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Apr 3, 2010 18:56
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Twenties Superstar posted:I guess the word "seem" is pretty operative in that sentence. When you spend years learning how to take photographs by yourself you learn much more than just how to take pictures that other people like to look at. You develop a personal sense of aesthetic, you learn to understand the form and its limits, why things happen the way do and how you can manipulate things to create the image that you want. Moreover you learn from what you see and you get a sense of what people are doing and what they have done so that you can draw your own photography from that collective experience. I find that people who "get traction within weeks" generally just get that by being fed a set of rules and tutorial instructions from blogs, forums, and flickr and all they really learn is how to create one image and, because they have no personal aesthetic, they are always unsure of the "quality" of that image. It isn't impossible to develop these things after the fact but I feel that it is much easier to learn later on and that there is a generally more even ground to ones photography if they develop first by taking photos of what they want purely for the fun with no regard for what is correct or right and over time developing their personal image organically. Just want to quote this. I agree completely. I think pursuing what you personally find pleasing as an artist, is the number one key to growth, because you will practice, you will self examine, and you will try new things. poopinmymouth fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Apr 3, 2010 |
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Apr 3, 2010 19:33
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Twenties Superstar posted:I guess the word "seem" is pretty operative in that sentence. When you spend years learning how to take photographs by yourself you learn much more than just how to take pictures that other people like to look at. You develop a personal sense of aesthetic, you learn to understand the form and its limits, why things happen the way do and how you can manipulate things to create the image that you want. Moreover you learn from what you see and you get a sense of what people are doing and what they have done so that you can draw your own photography from that collective experience. I find that people who "get traction within weeks" generally just get that by being fed a set of rules and tutorial instructions from blogs, forums, and flickr and all they really learn is how to create one image and, because they have no personal aesthetic, they are always unsure of the "quality" of that image. It isn't impossible to develop these things after the fact but I feel that it is much easier to learn later on and that there is a generally more even ground to ones photography if they develop first by taking photos of what they want purely for the fun with no regard for what is correct or right and over time developing their personal image organically. Yeah, this pretty much. Well said, actually just what I needed to hear. Thanks.
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Apr 3, 2010 19:35
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Took a couple of shots of my wife while we were in Fiji with my new 85mm f/1.8. I love this lens.  I've just had my lighting stuff arrive, I can't wait to use it to attempt get started on learning proper off camera portraiture lighting.
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Apr 5, 2010 14:59
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psylent posted:Took a couple of shots of my wife while we were in Fiji with my new 85mm f/1.8. I love this lens. The headshot is a little bit too shiny for my liking, maybe a little wide dof so all of her hair is in focus - but otherwise it looks good. I really like the second one, because it just screams out "stop taking pictures of me, you jackass" - that blurred background is lovely.
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Apr 5, 2010 16:14
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Is there any way to reduce the shinyness? Is it just the makeup she's using combined with the light? I've noticed that it's even more obvious under strobes. She likes being my model, but isn't completely comfortable in front of the camera and doesn't know how to pose. edit: in these shots it's just late afternoon sun, but it was pretty warm so it could have been a bit of perspiration adding to the shiny factor. psylent fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Apr 5, 2010 |
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Apr 5, 2010 16:33
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psylent posted:Is there any way to reduce the shinyness? Is it just the makeup she's using combined with the light? I've noticed that it's even more obvious under strobes. were you using any kind of modifier on the strobes? I'm not 100% but makeup might be a problem too.
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Apr 5, 2010 16:35
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In Lightroom: Try reducing clarity, use a mask for skin only
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Apr 5, 2010 16:36
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psylent posted:Is there any way to reduce the shinyness? Is it just the makeup she's using combined with the light? I've noticed that it's even more obvious under strobes. You mean when taking the photo? yes, increase the apparent size of the light. so either move the source you were using in closer, or assuming it was a bare bulb, put something in front of it like an umbrella or diffusing panel. Here, read this for more in depth explanation: http://mr-chompers.blogspot.com/2009/06/light.html
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Apr 5, 2010 16:43
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