Halloween kitty (or, "Why I love dGrin")

divamum

Why do I love dGrin? Because Iwent through the pictures I just took of my daughter on her way to a Halloween party and:

1. Only maybe 10% were total duds
2. Of the remainder, at least half of them were totally useable depending on expression.
3. Regarding 1&2 above I actually know WHY they were or weren't good
4. Most of them only needed minor pp tweaks of curves and cropping
4. I'm genuinely happy with some of them - by no means perfect, but I feel like I've taken another step beyond "snapshot" (??!!??:huh)

And all of this development and learning is from hangin' around this place reading, reading, reading and looking at the wonderful examples from everybody! :clap :barb

C&C absolutely and warmly welcomed.

Taken using my Rebel XT w 50mm 1.8 and 420ex flash.

I'm still not in total control of the flash - I love the results it CAN get, but I'm not always on top of what I did to get them. I did resort to using the P mode on the XT for some of them - I was trying to go with only Ap priority so I could control dof, but I overexposed a couple and since she was a moving target, I decided it was better to use P and get the shot than be a purist and miss it I had fec dialled down about as low as it goes, and I think in most cases the balance was about right (I could maybe have bumped it up 1 notch, but not much more I don't think).

This costume was concocted by my 10-year old and dubbed "Halloween Diva Sparkle Kitty". On Friday, she plans to add tons of gold body glitter, false eyelashes, and anything else sparkly she can get her hands on :rolleyes:D

1 My favorite (contrast is good to me, but this monitor's a little dark - is it washed out to others?)


2.


3. (contrasty light was a problem - I'm not convinced I tweaked exposure on this one to my satisfaction yet - I'll have another crack at it later)


4.


5. "Diva Kitty", ie doing her best impersonation of me singing! (is this one reading green/cool to anybody else?)

DavidTO

Nice job! Glad to hear that Dgrin is getting some love.

I like the first one best. Maybe add a title over it "I can haz dgrin." ? Kidding!

Cute kid, and it looks like she's having a lot of fun. Enjoy it while it lasts.

divamum

DavidTO wrote:

Nice job! Glad to hear that Dgrin is getting some love.

I like the first one best. Maybe add a title over it "I can haz dgrin." ? Kidding!

Cute kid, and it looks like she's having a lot of fun. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Thanks David. Yeah, she's a hoot (even if she IS growing up waaayyyy too fast - you're not kidding enjoy it while it lasts!

First one's my favorite too (and I only even thought to shoot it like that from having seen all the "peekaboo" shots in the weddings forum - YEAH!).

(PS totally laughing about "I can haz dgrin"... hmm... maybe it's time for me to have avatar in here....:giggle )

jeffreaux2

That first one is darn near perfect.

See....we bite....but not all that hard!:D ...and mean well in the end!

Nice job and thanks for sharing!

divamum

jeffreaux2 wrote:

That first one is darn near perfect.

See....we bite....but not all that hard!:D ...and mean well in the end!

Nice job and thanks for sharing!

Awww... thank you so very much!!

Actually, Jeffraux, it was you who said one of the things that has most stuck with me as I've been working on this in the last few weeks (I'm pretty sure it was you, anyway - I can't find the post, so if it was somebody else... apologies for mis-attributing!!). As I uploaded this afternoon's shoot and was revelling in how much higher my keeper rate was (and how much better they were in general!) I was thinking about something you posted a few weeks back when you and cmason first prodded me off the sidelines and into trying the challenges (for which I'm very grateful - I'm having a blast with them!). I can't find the post to quote you exactly, but you basically said that "if the ideas and the eye are there, the technique will come as you start to use them". This seemed so counterintiuitve to me as a singer, but I totally see what you mean now. I realise that (unlike singing technique!!) it's not, "I've finally learned how to do X... how do I apply it?" but rather a case of "I want to do X... what technical skills do I need to acquire to make it look like that?". And simply figuring it out by TRYING

No claims for having *mastered* it, of course, but at least it's starting to make some kind of sense (give or take getting the ETTLII flash to behave the way I want in aperture priority mode when I only want a bit of fill!!)

Thanks again for your encouragement lust

heatherfeather

Yep, number one is definately a keeper. She is a cutie, by the way!

Why 1 is great:

Eyes are sharp and nice catch light.
Expression is adorable!
Depth of field is right on!
Skin tones are good!


Keep them coming! You are really getting somewhere good!

divamum

heatherfeather wrote:

Yep, number one is definately a keeper. She is a cutie, by the way!

Why 1 is great:

Eyes are sharp and nice catch light.
Expression is adorable!
Depth of field is right on!
Skin tones are good!


Keep them coming! You are really getting somewhere good!

Thanks Heather - you KNOW how much I admire your work, so your kind comments mean a very great deal! (And that series you did of your daughter's first day of kindergarten stays with me as an inspiration every time I shoot my own )

divamum

Returning to this (sorry to bump it up), because as I was reviewing this batch again, I note that #1, undoubtedly the best shot I got in the series, was actually Av priority, and not P as I thought.

The reason I'm slightly confused is because in most of the shots where I opened up the aperture to blur the background, it was WAY overexposed, but this one came out perfectly (I did next to nothing to this shot in post - tweaked curves very slightly, and that's about it). Exif confirms the flash fired (as does the catchlight).

Since I'm usually using the flash for portraits/people, I often want to be able to open up the aperture, but I need to know *how* to make that work for me in varying conditions so I don't wind up with badly under or overexposed shots... How important is the "test" firing of the flash for exposure? I'm not sure I always remembered to do that...

Thanks in advance for any pointers on my journey to mastering this. I am DETERMINED to learn how to make the flash do what I want consistently (well, more or less consistently!)....