Walk in the park

Svennie

I took a friend of mine for a walk in the nearby park and shoot a few photos of her. The weather forecast was 'cloudy, with some sun', great for photos during the afternoon. However... it was more sun than cloudy. Beautiful weather of course, but difficult light. I had my camera, 50mm1.8 and SB900 flash. To use the flash I needed aperture of 5.6 or more (my camera won't go below 1/500s), but I just love the sharpness of the 50mm at 2.2, so I ditched the flash :wink But enough with the excuses :huh:wink. Here is a selection from the gallery.
#1

#2

#3

#4 Our 'assistent' (her little boy


Any C&C are of course more than welcome :thumb

Svennie

no comments at all? I definitely could use some tips on light, pose, crop, colors, etc!

Caspian

My favorites in order are 2,1,4,3. The pose in 3 doesn't work for me. #2 seems to have all the key elements of lighting, composition, and posing working together for a nice casual portrait. I think you could have cropped it in the portrait format and it would have worked too. #1 is also a nice portrait, but the lighting seems a little dark and flat to me. Maybe open it up by 1/3 or 2/3 and adjust the levels to give it a little more depth. I like the idea of #4, but the composition/pose doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure what I would change, sorry I can't be more specific. I agree that the lens is sharp and gives you nice control over the DOF. I had that lens for years and just recently traded it for the f1.4. What body are you using it on?

kidzmom

They are nice but some seem a touch on the cool side to me. #2 is my fav of the group. The color of her dress in #1 and #3 is night and day. Try to get the colors to pop (like on#1) with the rest. #3 seems the most flat in color. Thanks for sharing

Svennie

Thank you for the comments!

Caspian wrote:

My favorites in order are 2,1,4,3. The pose in 3 doesn't work for me.

Oke. Could you be more specific (angle, expression) or is it the overal pose?

Caspian wrote:

#2 seems to have all the key elements of lighting, composition, and posing working together for a nice casual portrait. I think you could have cropped it in the portrait format and it would have worked too.

Casual was the thing I was going for. I'll give the crop a go and see how that works. The empty space was intentional, but appeartly it doesn't work

Caspian wrote:

#1 is also a nice portrait, but the lighting seems a little dark and flat to me. Maybe open it up by 1/3 or 2/3 and adjust the levels to give it a little more depth.

Some of them are indeed a little flat. I'll reprocess them and see if I can fix it.

Caspian wrote:

I like the idea of #4, but the composition/pose doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure what I would change, sorry I can't be more specific.

This is more a snapshot. Her kid was with us and was playing around in the park. Now and then he came up to us. At one point I saw this sweet interaction and quickly took a shoot. She even didn't know I had this one untill I showed her

Caspian wrote:

I agree that the lens is sharp and gives you nice control over the DOF. I had that lens for years and just recently traded it for the f1.4. What body are you using it on?

I'm using a D70s. But the old workhorse will be replaced by a d300s soon I hope. The d70s is a great camera, but it is very noisy at high iso. And if you don't crop your photo, 6mp is fine. However, cropping your photo and printing it on A4-size, it shows. It has made me and so many other people very happy

Svennie

kidzmom wrote:

They are nice but some seem a touch on the cool side to me. #2 is my fav of the group. The color of her dress in #1 and #3 is night and day. Try to get the colors to pop (like on#1) with the rest. #3 seems the most flat in color. Thanks for sharing

Thanks I'll reprocess them and try to make them pop more! I haven't looked at them for a few days now and I must admit: the difference in colors is way too much.

Caspian

"Casual was the thing I was going for. I'll give the crop a go and see how that works. The empty space was intentional, but appeartly it doesn't work"

I really like the open space in #2. I simply meant it could be cropped both ways and be a nice shot.

Svennie

Caspian wrote:

I'll look at the other responses later today. But, I really like the open space in #2. I simply meant it could be cropped both ways and be a nice shot.

Thank you. I've updated the smugmug files and therefore the images here. The difference in color/white balance should be almost gone now. If not, let me know. Any other C&C is, again, really appreciated.