Prom Pictures
I've been working on improving taking pictures outdoors (lighting) and focusing. I do not have a flash yet so I'm working with the pop up flash the camera has. Any constructive criticism you could give me to help me improve the quality of my photos is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
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Could you maybe explain why and what I could do for light until I can afford a flash for my camera????
At the moment, you do not have a fast lens (when you can afford it, you can look at getting a fast prime). If you use a tripod, you can probably slow down your shutter speed.
I'd recommend practicing with your camera at high ISOs with just your own indoor lights. See how high it can go without being too grainy, and what shutter speeds your can get at those settings. Perhaps it'll be fast enough to hand-hold, though you'll probably still benefit from a tripod.
Here's a case study. An f/1.7 lens should gather about 10 times more light than an f/5.6 lens (which is the f-stop you had in your last shot up there).
This is a shot taken at f/1.7, 1/20th second exposure, at ISO 400 (it would have been better with a higher ISO & a faster shutter):
The only light was from the iPad's screen.
In your image with the flash, you had a 1/200th second exposure at f/5.6, also at ISO 400. Your aperture would have gotten 1/10th the light of the f/1.7, and the 1/200th second exposure also would collect 1/10th the light of the shutter speed on the above shot.
So (with the flash), your camera was exposing for 100 times more light, which is between 6 & 7 stops brighter.
Keeping your lens at f/5.6, you could probably work with... 5 stops less light, if you increase your ISO to 3200 (you'll have to see if that's too grainy on your camera or not), and reduce your shutter speed to 1/50th of a second. That's slow enough that I would recommend a tripod, but I would hope that is good enough for that sort of indoor shooting.
All of this is a very long way to say: I think you can get away with the lights you have in your house, at least for now. Figure out the limits of your camera (without resorting to flash), and from there you can decide what you need.
The outdoor shots don't suffer from the use of the pop-up flash, that I can see.
For #1, there are two things:
1) I doubt the flash did much from that distance in daylight
2) I can't tell what is in focus. Is it the building behind them?
My favorite shot is #3.
First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to explain everything to me. It’s so technical that I'm going to have to look some stuff up to figure it all out.
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Also, thank you for giving me some positive feedback. It’s beneficial to know when you are doing something “well” (if you could call it that) just as much as it is helpful to get constructive criticism. I was a little crushed after that first post. I was trying to focus on the people in that first shot, but if it’s the house in the background that’s in focus I really messed up!
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Thank you again,<o:p></o:p>
Shannon
Sometimes that's all you have. Better to embrace it and learn how to use it.
There are small devices you can pop over the pop-up that help even the light out and make it appear as less directional. They look similar to a ping-pong ball. Something like that gives you a nice soft light.
As far as the pictures, you did a fine job. Those inside look a bit over-flashed. You can mitigate that by setting the flash compensation to reduce the flash output. As someone else said, the flash doesn't have much of an effect at the distances and this is where an off-camera flash would help the most.
It's hard for me to tell on that first shot. It's one of those cases where I'd look at it at 100% magnification on the original high-res image to see what's in focus.
The outdoor shots were all on an overcast day it looks like?
I think that on overcast days, you don't need a fill flash (or a reflector) as much as you need it when competing directly with the sun. The problem with overcast days is that you have directional light from above (which is not so flattering due to the shadows it creates under the eyes, etc.), and relatively directionless light from everywhere else.
Best thing to do there (as far as I understand) is to get them under something blocking the light directly from above, so you can have more directional light coming to them from the front, side, etc.
There's a book called Available Light that I rather liked, that dealt with shooting with minimal equipment (they do use reflectors and such in several of the shots, but it's good to see what they can do without expensive equipment).
The other part of it is post-processing (another area that generally costs a bit of money for the software...). I've attached some tweaks to shot #3. Nothing particularly advanced, but I think it improves it somewhat...
And for the totally budget conscious, when desperate you can use a white paper coffee filter over your flash, held on with an elastic band. Just 'puff' the filter up to keep the paper away from the actual flash and it will act as a diffuser for the light, softening it a lot.
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
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Picadilly, NB, Canada
I may have to check out the coffee filter trick for myself.
I have never used Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements), so I doubt I can be too much help with the specifics there. In Aperture, I did a levels adjustment, especially bringing the midpoint down to brighten the image, and also a curves adjustment to lighten the skin a bit more. That, and a mid-contrast adjustment & a vignette was all I did for the color version.
Here's some numbers....remembering that you alway want the magenta equal to or lower than the yellow in a photo, and cyan needs to be a fair percentage of magenta.
Him: Cyan 1, magenta 27, and yellow 24. Middle of the forehead.
" 4, magenta 35, and yellow 26. Nose area.
She actually looks too pink as well.
To much magenta is usually not acceptable for skin tones and one of the most prevalent reasons that images are returned to photographers.
Here's a link that explains what I'm talking about.
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1091766
Hope this helps...
Educate yourself like you'll live forever and live like you'll die tomorrow.
Ed