Not sure if I'm qualified to give a critique, but I will give my opinion of what I like and don't.
On number one, first, this is a very cute little girl. But you kind of set yourself up with a difficult task taking a picture in bright sunlight. The hard lines on her neck and arm, a little on her face, as well as the loss of detail in parts of her dress shows some of the difficulty full sunlight presents.
Unless I'm going for an effect that full sunlight will produce or the sun is playing a part in the finished photograph, I avoid shooting in that environment as much as possible. It can indeed be done with nice results, but there are a number of things that need to be done (deflectors, reflectors, strobe etc) to produce a nice, even lit finished product.
I also would have liked to see a more narrow depth of field to throw the grass in the background out of focus. This was shot at f32, most likely the camera chose this because of the 1600 ISO setting you were working with. I think you may have found better results working with ISO 200 a much larger aperture and higher shutter speed.
Number two has much potential. Play with the crop some so the main focus of the picture is her eyes, cheeks and lips and I think you will have a winner!
Thank you Bryce! I took this picture about a month ago before learning about light (and how you shouldn't shoot in full sun) so you are totally right. It was my first time shooting RAW and was excited to experiement. How do you guys know the specifics of my f-stops etc. when I don't list that info.? I'm thinking you guys may know something I don't here. When you say to play with the cropping in #2 what are you thinking? I think its so tightly cropped that I feel like there's not much left to work with. Ideas??? Thank you again for taking the time to give me advice!!!!
Thank you Bryce! I took this picture about a month ago before learning about light (and how you shouldn't shoot in full sun) so you are totally right. It was my first time shooting RAW and was excited to experiement. How do you guys know the specifics of my f-stops etc. when I don't list that info.? I'm thinking you guys may know something I don't here. When you say to play with the cropping in #2 what are you thinking? I think its so tightly cropped that I feel like there's not much left to work with. Ideas??? Thank you again for taking the time to give me advice!!!!
Shannon
I don't know how others read the Exif data but I use
an online Exif viewer
Interesting! I didn't even know about that. I was a little freaked out at first wondering how you guys knew all this specific info. about my shots. You know more about the specifics of my own photographs than I do! Thanks for the info!!! I'll have to try it out on some your photos.
I downloaded the program and its really cool. Now I can use it to go back and see what I was doing "right" in the shots I like and what I was doing "wrong" in the shots I don't like. Thanks for the info.!
Comments
On number one, first, this is a very cute little girl. But you kind of set yourself up with a difficult task taking a picture in bright sunlight. The hard lines on her neck and arm, a little on her face, as well as the loss of detail in parts of her dress shows some of the difficulty full sunlight presents.
Unless I'm going for an effect that full sunlight will produce or the sun is playing a part in the finished photograph, I avoid shooting in that environment as much as possible. It can indeed be done with nice results, but there are a number of things that need to be done (deflectors, reflectors, strobe etc) to produce a nice, even lit finished product.
I also would have liked to see a more narrow depth of field to throw the grass in the background out of focus. This was shot at f32, most likely the camera chose this because of the 1600 ISO setting you were working with. I think you may have found better results working with ISO 200 a much larger aperture and higher shutter speed.
Number two has much potential. Play with the crop some so the main focus of the picture is her eyes, cheeks and lips and I think you will have a winner!
Shannon
an online Exif viewer
http://regex.info/exif.cgi
http://www.realphotoman.com/
Work in progress
http://www.realphotoman.net/ Zenfolio 10% off Referral Code: 1KH-5HX-5HU
I downloaded the program and its really cool. Now I can use it to go back and see what I was doing "right" in the shots I like and what I was doing "wrong" in the shots I don't like. Thanks for the info.!
Shannon
Despite the high cost of living, it remains popular.
Why do people post their equipment in their sig. Isn't it kind of like bragging? That having been said...
Canon 40d Gripped (x2), Rebel (Original), Canon 70-200 f/2.8 USM L, Canon 300 f/4, Tamron 28-75 f/2.8, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Canon 17-55 f/3.5-5.6, ThinkTank Airport TakeOff