Few B&W Closeups - C&C please

mjoshi123

Here are few I took while trying to test my EF 85 1.8 lens on Canon 60D. All of them are in between 1.8-2.2 so you can see narrow DOF.

1


2


3 - this one is my favoraite from set


4

reyvee61

I understand the effect of shooting wide with a lens such as the 85 1.8 because my primary lens of choice is the same only I use the 1.4 Nikon equivalent on a full sized sensor so I realize how much care needs to go into focus points. I always go for the eyes or eye via single point focus depending on the angle because for close ups like this odd things can happen unless you intentionally meant to focus solely on an ear for instance.
I don't know if it's your processing or if you shot at a high ISO but all these appear to be soft on his eyes plus the B&W process you used does not have much contrast so that does not help the situation any.
Definitely use single point focus for ultimate control vs multiple point when up close like this and zero in on those eyes

mjoshi123

reyvee61 wrote: »

I understand the effect of shooting wide with a lens such as the 85 1.8 because my primary lens of choice is the same only I use the 1.4 Nikon equivalent on a full sized sensor so I realize how much care needs to go into focus points. I always go for the eyes or eye via single point focus depending on the angle because for close ups like this odd things can happen unless you intentionally meant to focus solely on an ear for instance.
I don't know if it's your processing or if you shot at a high ISO but all these appear to be soft on his eyes plus the B&W process you used does not have much contrast so that does not help the situation any.
Definitely use single point focus for ultimate control vs multiple point when up close like this and zero in on those eyes

Thanks for your comments, everything is processed in LR4+VSCO combination. Everything shot at ISO 400 so that is not much of noise due to ISO, but VSCO adds some film grain later in processing. Softness could be because of 2 reasons, 1 max shutter was 1/100, few of them are 1/60 at F1.8-f2.2 range and everything is shot handheld. So those two things could add to some of softness/blur

Kinkajou

I really like the first one. I'd kick up the fill a smidge and then deepen the contrast. Was this the Ilford setting?

Gotham

The lack of contrast or deep blacks in the B&Ws give them an aged feeling. It's not to my taste, but it works if that's what you're going for.

mjoshi123

Kinkajou wrote: »

I really like the first one. I'd kick up the fill a smidge and then deepen the contrast. Was this the Ilford setting?

Thanks its Kodak T-MAX 3200.

mjoshi123

okay here are reedits based upons some of feedback here -