revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 I went down to NYC yesterday with my family to see my Mother for Mothers day. I set my camera on a tripod and tried to arrange the kids and mom but the pictures look like crap. My first mistake was not resetting the ISO. I had it at 1600 because I was shooting some thing at Night the day before. I am not sure how much of a difference the high ISO make but the pictures seems blurry more than too much light. On the otherhand I find I take really nice pictures outside (IMO of course) Is portrait photography really that much more difficult? I wish the sky was not so overcast yesterday. I got a nice shot of the skyline and am shocked that I can see the Name Metlife on the building so clearly. I must have been 25+ miles from Manhattan. the outdoor Photos were taken at a Park in Whitestone queens. please tell me what I am doing wrong.....<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Empire state Building /Metlife shot with Tamron from Whitestone NY/East flushing near the end of Runway for LaGuardia Airport<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Clouds<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Trees<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Not sure if these are Swans or Geese. all I know is I felt bad they live in the east river!<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 here is one of the Kids and Mom not moving.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael_kuhne Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Your pics look very good. I don't think they look like crap at all. The ones at ISO 1600 look good as well. No.1 pic, try cropping out the extraneous room, doing perhaps a vertical 8x10 crop. What camera/lens were you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shots worth sharing Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Others can speak more authoritatively but my guess is that the high iso did introduce some softness but you needed it given the lighting conditions. Perhaps you could have could have opened up the aperture a bit more (arranging the people side by side r/t one behind the other would reduce the required dof. Still, as Michael says these aren't half bad and can be "punched up" a bit in pp.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Michael, thanks. when I look at the photos @100% in Pentax photobrowser (people shots) they look very distorted/blurry. 25% they look soft I guess is the word. I guess portraits should be softer than Nature shots. I was using my K100D and the 18-55 MM lens for the people and cloud shots. Tamron 70-300 for the skyline and the birds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Dave, the Aperture was 4.5 on the People shots. still working with arranging people. sometimes I think its easier to have strangers listen to you arrange them than family! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shots worth sharing Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 "its easier to have strangers listen to you arrange them than family!" Indisputable fact! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael_kuhne Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Excellent processing, Dave! In which program? Looks like contrast, saturation, and sharpness were all increased- by how much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan_mcclain Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Christopher, I am also trying to improve my improvised portrait skills, so I'll start by saying that I probably don't know much more than you do, but I'll share what I'm learning by reading Photo.net posts and the strobist website. First, your photos of your relatives look good, nice soft light, etc. What distracts me is the cluttered background. If you had a faster lens, maybe a 1.8, you could blur out the background if you couldn't avoid it altogether. When I practice on still life indoors I've used some of the cheap canvas painter's drop cloths from Home Depot for a neutral beige background. I'm sure a person could paint the cloth any color they wanted. I've also set up a wall of old colorful books a few feet behind one of my old Rolleicords, so when focused on the Rolleicord at f1.8 they are an unobtrusive background, and at 2.8 the books are blurred but recognizable as books, for a nice blurry background. What I need to do is shift my thinking from cameras (which are fun precision instruments to learn about and use) to light, which is the real cornerstone of any photo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shots worth sharing Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Thanks, Michael. I just used FastStone to bump up contrast (which seems to increase saturation 'automatically'--annoyingly, at times) and sharpen it a bit. I'm afraid I don't pay attention to the numbers (in fact, I have no clue what they represent)--I just "season to taste." I think "not much" is a fair statement since I tend to be conservative about such things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc2imaging Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Your arrangements are fun and different, and I really don't mind that 1st one being so wide. It sets the scene so years later you can look at the pic and know where you were. Good job on the exposure, things like that window in the back ground wreaks havoc with with the light meters, that's where you have to be smarter than the camera. I might have rotated the group around a bit, so there would be more light coming across mom (she seems to be in a bit of a shadow), and tried for a bit more DoF. I don't like going below f/5.6 when shooting people... One more thing to remember: Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer, unfortunately for cancer victims, Chuck Norris never cries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcmanamey Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 well, matt beat me to it, and that's not surprising, since this is literally my 1st chance to get any internet connection today. I would keep it as a rule to keep your lens as stopped down as possible when shooting people, because - especially the way they're arranged in #2 - you need as much DOF as possible to get multiple people in focus. I think the pics look ok, I'm not taking time to pull it over to my hard drive and pixel peep, but the only thing I would guess is that the massive amount of light streaming in the window, and a little in the door in the mirror, is actually creating some overexposure for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashley_b1 Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Those people shots do look soft, even at this size. Did you switch shake reduction off? If your camera was on a decent tripod and you left SR on it may have caused this problem. Your shutter speeds were 1/13 and 1/10 of a second, so bringing the ISO back down wouldn't have helped because your shutter speed would have blown out and they'd have needed to stand as still as statues. Besides, high ISO causes noise more than it causes "softness"... unless you have applied noise reduction. My guess is that in the first picture either your family was moving around a little and the slow shutter speed blurred them a bit AND/OR shake reduction had not been switched off. In the second picture ("the Kids and Mom not moving") shake reduction may also be a culprit, but it is also likely that the DOF is not sufficient (only 4.5 aperture) as others have suggested. If you had the camera set on auto for AF point selection then perhaps it may have picked the girl as the focal point... in which case it is likely the guy at the back is also out of focus due to a narrow depth of field. It depends how far from the camera they were standing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Dan, you are right about the background but I thought and Like Matt said, years down the road the Kids could look back and remember the trip to Grandma's place for Mothers day in 08. It gives it a visual date stamp. There's a portable backdrop with a muslin sheet on my list of things I need. the down side to that is lugging stuff around when it is a Family fun day and trying not to make it a photo op. Its bad enought that I am trying to arrange people in shots like I know what I am doing....I still get an eye from people here and there when they have their P&S and I break out the Pentax and they are like " what are you a proffessional or something" ........I'm like or something....lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Matt, My son is 15 and has no F'in clue as to "who" Chuck Norris is but he says these phrases all the time. he has said what you wrote many times and cracked up when I showed him your quote...lol His shirt reads "If you can see Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris can see you. If you cannot see Chuck Norris, you may be only seconds away from death!" LOL As to their positioning, I had them the other way and light was coming in from the other window as well. My Mom bought the place because of amoung other things the amazing amount of free light that blasts through her place! I couldnt get them anywhere with no excessive light hitting something and reflecting. Like Dan suggested some backdrop would have covered some of that but it was a trip to Grandmas not a shoot for Vogue...lol and that shadow on my Mom is my Burly 15 year old who is itching for the JV football team next year... I'll keep the f/5.6 in mind. Maria, you guys are a great tag team!I will keep your tips in mind as well thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Ashley, Bingo.....SR was on and It was on a Tripod. The AF point was also set to auto so that makes sense. that makes a lot of sense as this picture set at 1600, auto af, and handheld came out better at long range that the inside shots.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Dave, ""its easier to have strangers listen to you arrange them than family!" Indisputable fact!" thanks I was starting to think I was some sort of dictator or something...lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Wheres Javier?? I thought of him when I shot those birds... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashley_b1 Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Chris, keep in mind also that the DOF gets bigger as the person in the frame gets smaller (ie. magnification decreases). Conversely, the DOF decreases as the person appears bigger in the frame (magnification increases). The people in your second shot are much bigger (take up more of the frame / more strongly magnified / more closely cropped) than in your first shot. So even with the same aperture you would expect the DOF to be less. So just be aware that when you do closely cropped shots (eg. head and shoulders only, with little background) the depth of field is much less than if you include more of their bodies or background in the shot. This applies whether you are zooming in with the lens or moving in with your feet.... only the magnification (enlargement factor) of the image/subject matters (in addition to the aperture, of course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgredline Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Hi Chris, I am here. I was out much of last week, I got really sick and ended up out of commission... Chris, My question would be, what kind of metering are you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revolver Posted May 11, 2008 Author Share Posted May 11, 2008 Javier, I hope you are feeling better.... I was using multi-segment on those shots Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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