Relaxing.

I have been experimenting with B/W (created from colour files) for

some time. This is the first shot I feel worthy of display.

Grain/Focus/Mood are exactly what I was aiming for, what do you think

of it? All critique, comments, suggestions welcome!

You did an excellent job of working this image with regard to the B&W--I also like the the way you captured the model's mood.

First it is not very sharp, the model's face is out of focus, also at a 10th of a second at 28mm you are unlikely to get a sharp result anyway.

To my eye it needs more punch, it is too grey, there is not a big enougth spread of tones. I do like the framing and the pose.

Thanks for your comments. The focusing was intentional. I did take other shots which were face-focused as well, I preferred the pose/framing and subsequent dreamy look of this one.

It did seem a bit grey on reflection. Here's a quick version with more range. Also sharpened to re-introduce the grainy feel of the original which was lost in resizing.

http://lindsey.jp/images/BWSs2.JPG

I'm not sure I like the overbearing brightness of the couch like this, perhaps it needs some selective dodge/burn.

Better if focus would be on the face.

Mmm it's a bit better. It's still a bit grey. I didn't think digital images had grain! I wonder if there are particlar problems to B&W digital. Coventional printing tends to lead you to a sweet spot for paper exposure, and generally encourages you to follow the old rules and print for a full range of tones. I think the focous needs to be on the face, though those trousers are rather nice.

Shooting at ISO1250 and 'pushing' 2 full stops makes for a very noisy picture. It looks somewhat film-like on the Canon 1Ds, but given the shooting conditions I think you'd agree it's much less noisy/grainy than film would have been.

 

I'd say digital does have it's own problems for sure. Notably that the original image is colour, so selecting the right balance of colour contribution to the grey-scale image for tonality is something I find very difficult to get right. Hence the request for critique. Thanks all.

 

really nice portrait - has she got a headache though?!