Meagan and Abby (12 photos) - first studio shots for me - what do you think?

rosselliot

here they are:




























thanks for looking!!!!!!

btw, all photos were taken with my 30D. the single shots were taken with the 70-200 f/4 and the ones of both of them were taken with the 50mm f/1.8. the lighting was controlled with lamps and REVEAL GE light bulbs. my own lttle concoction of lighting there - lol. all were also taken with ISO 1600 in LARGE JPEG format.

thanks again for looking and all comments and/or suggestions WELCOME!!

- RE

USAIR

Ross you have some good photos here
And two beautiful models also

Fred

DJ-S1

Ross, I really like the poses and expressions you captured. They are great models. I like the composition of most of them - I'm not a big fan of the "chop-off-top-of-the-head" style, but I think for the most part it works here.

Overall I think there is a color cast to the photos, kind of reddish-yellow? And many of them are a bit out of focus, some maybe from slow shutter speed (1, 2, 5) and some it seems from very shallow depth of field. For example the last shot, the nearest eye is sharp and everything else is not, I'm not sure that was your intent.

I'm curious why you don't shoot RAW, it would give you a great deal of post-processing capabilities.

Overall I think these are very nice and I think you nailed the hard bit - expressions, poses, framing, making the models comfortable. A few tweaks to the lighting/color and a little more crispness and you are on your way.

Oh yeah, #4 - bonus points for that one. Very nice.

rosselliot

DJ-S1 wrote:

Ross, I really like the poses and expressions you captured. They are great models. I like the composition of most of them - I'm not a big fan of the "chop-off-top-of-the-head" style, but I think for the most part it works here.

Overall I think there is a color cast to the photos, kind of reddish-yellow? And many of them are a bit out of focus, some maybe from slow shutter speed (1, 2, 5) and some it seems from very shallow depth of field. For example the last shot, the nearest eye is sharp and everything else is not, I'm not sure that was your intent.

I'm curious why you don't shoot RAW, it would give you a great deal of post-processing capabilities.

Overall I think these are very nice and I think you nailed the hard bit - expressions, poses, framing, making the models comfortable. A few tweaks to the lighting/color and a little more crispness and you are on your way.

Oh yeah, #4 - bonus points for that one. Very nice.

hey! thanks a ton. I have so many questions about this. do you mind trying to answer them? I'd REALLY appreciate it.

well, I usually don't shoot in RAW just because it does take so long to do imperative post processing work. if you have a ton of photos, how do you make time to do all of the work on them?
also, I did these photos for free, because those are two of my best friends - hence the reason they were comfortable and didn't look like statues . so I couldn't spend a ton of time on them...
I've read so many good things about RAW, but I'm having a hard time deciding, it's a big step! maybe the real reason is this: can you do RAW processing in Photoshop Elements? cause that's been my only concern...that and the fact that they take up so much room...does compressing on the camera destroy it's crispness and such?

okay, for the depth of field, you should change the FSTOP right? the bigger the fstop and the deeper the field, correct? but how can you up the fstop without creating a really long shuter speed? that's been my problem, there was ennough light in the room with the lamps I had and the doors I had open, but I still had to take them with ISO 1600 to keep the shutter speed fast enough to stop their movement and keep it really crisp. is there a trick to uping the fstop without the shutter speed slowing?

Well, I can't wait to hear responses, I really appreciate the suggestions, and I hope I can really learn more to help with them.

- Ross Elliot

flyingdutchie

> "there was ennough light in the room with the lamps I had and the doors I had open, but I still had to take them with ISO 1600 "

If you still have to use ISO1600, then there is not enough light.....

You have lamps. So, use the lamps to create enough light so that you can use an F/stop that allows you the DoF you want and a shutter speed that eliminates subject-movement.

Keep up the good work.

DJ-S1

I'm no expert, hopefully some of the real pros will chime in here but here's my take.

I have been shooting raw+jpg for a while, and I really just decided to stop. I find I don't use the jpgs at all, and they are just taking up space. The hardest thing to learn (for me) has been culling the junk and processing the rest. That takes care of the space problem with raw. As for the time, once you get a workflow down that works for you, it really doesn't take long unless it's a special shot that requires an unusual amount of touching up. It takes me a minute or two per image at the most.

I gather that most pros who shoot events like sports only shoot in jpg because they aren't going to process 500 images a day. But then again, they also don't make the mistakes I do and therefore their stuff comes off the camera in better shape than my shots.

I don't know if Elements works for raw, the older versions didn't. But Lightroom is coming out soon, and I think that will be the program to use. It looks awesome in beta. Or if you can get a copy of the free Raw Shooter Essentials, that's a great raw converter (which is being incorporated into Lightroom).

For depth of field, yes higher aperture numbers (and therefore smaller apertures) gives more depth of field. If you are using that f1.8 lens of yours wide open (at 1.8) then you are getting maybe an half inch in focus and everything else is not. That's fine if that's what you wanted, but in that last shot I bet you wanted both girls sharp.

What shutter speeds did you use for the first couple you posted? There's a rule of thumb that the shutter speed should be at least 1/focal length so that camera shake doesn't cause blur. That may be the culprit since you didn't have much light to work with.

I looked at your site briefly, you've got a lot of talent. Keep at it, you're doing great!

tomthephotographer

I liked eveything. I would only suggest that you avoid squared flat face shots on ladies. It is the least flatering. The models are pretty and the photos look good. thank you for sharing.