white backdrop critique

toddb

Borrowed a white backdrop for a video shoot I'm doing and since I had it set up I decided to play around with some stills...so I sweet-talked my oldest to hop in front of the backdrop for a couple minutes...just looking for some dgrin community critique of the work. Thoughts? Thanks in advance for your time.

Darren Troy C

What a cutie! Seems fine to me, all-be-it a bit soft on the focus.

Scott_Quier

The good:

• - what a cutie!
• Really like the light/shadows on her face. The light placement and quality appears to be very well done.

The Not-So-Good:

• I think she may have been a bit too close the background. There appears to be a bit of light wrapping around her hear - but that could just be the light from the background shining through her hair.
• It's quite soft. Don't know if it's mis-focus or poor lens. I suspect the former as the aperture was 6.3 and most lenses will do a very good job when stopped down to that extent. It's really nice when you can get the eyes (eye lashes) in sharp focus.
• There's considerable noise in the image. Since this was shot at ISO 400 with a 7D, I'm suspecting that it was under-exposed and then pushed in post?

In all, I think this is a good start. Do you have ... did you use anything in the way of a flash/ambient light meter? Using such will make it much easier to get the exposure "correct".

toddb

thanks
The Not-So-Good:

• I think she may have been a bit too close the background. There appears to be a bit of light wrapping around her hear - but that could just be the light from the background shining through her hair.
• It's quite soft. Don't know if it's mis-focus or poor lens. I suspect the former as the aperture was 6.3 and most lenses will do a very good job when stopped down to that extent. It's really nice when you can get the eyes (eye lashes) in sharp focus.
• There's considerable noise in the image. Since this was shot at ISO 400 with a 7D, I'm suspecting that it was under-exposed and then pushed in post?

In all, I think this is a good start. Do you have ... did you use anything in the way of a flash/ambient light meter? Using such will make it much easier to get the exposure "correct".[/QUOTE]

thanks for the thoughts guys! She was about 5 feet in front of the backdrop, but I didn't use anything to flag the lights I was hammering the backdrop with so she is probably just catching spill from those. Think the softness is mis-focus...been having trouble getting anything sharp with my 7d --- I can and have, but not as consistently as I use to get with my old Nikon D50 so I'm thinking amateur-error and just need to get better with it. The lens is just the kit lens that comes with it.

Appreciate the critiques -- really want to get better with this stuff and this is the best way.

D'Buggs

Many trouble w/ nailing the bd, 'just right'.


You NAILED this.