Harley on a Valkyrie

Swartzy

Harley is this gentleman's name which is comical since he rides a Honda. In anycase, when I grow up I'll have a nice lens and slr to blur the background a bit more. Miss my AE-1 but I'll get over it. This was taken with a Powershot A620. I liked the composition personally but let me know what you think.

rahmonster

Swartzy wrote:

H when I grow up I'll have a nice lens and slr to blur the background a bit more.

Thats the only thing I was going to suggest. I think his is a nice natural relaxed portrait well done.:D

Scott_Quier

Yes, very well done.

Does not the A620 allow you to photograph in either shutter and/or aperture priority mode. I don't know, just asking because I have a Casio digicam that does and I thought most of them did allow for this.

wxwax

It does, but I'm not sure the tiny lens will allow you to narrow the depth of field all that much.

Swarzy, I agree, the shot tells a nice story.

Swartzy

Thanks very much for the comments
Yep, the A620 with the small lens is the only handicap for that camera. It takes great pics and has some cool "G" series features. I have worked that thing six ways till Sunday to lessen the DOF and to no avail....there isn't much difference between 3.5 to 8.0.

Now that the new Rebel XTi is about to market, I'll have my eye on that with some great glass. I think its time to move up as the Powershot is limiting potential. Thanks for the kind words.


http://swartzy.smugmug.com

germaine_sba

Swartzy --

I think in this picture it would be fairly easy to blur the background in Photoshop. I would use the magnetic lasso tool to outline Harley and the motorcycle and set up a separate background layer. There are a couple of "holes" that you would have to remember to include, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Feather the selection, and put a little gaussian blur (to taste ) on the background. I used to shoot a lot with a PowerShot S60 with gives a really sharp picture with practically no background blur, and you can get a pretty realistic bokeh using the above-described method if you don't go overboard with the blur.

I know Photoshop 7 has the gaussian blur and I think Photoshop Elements does, too. IMHO it's a really useful tool.

Actually, it's a really nice "environmental portrait" as it is. I wouldn't monkey with it too much.

Swartzy

Thanks very much for the feedback & suggestions
You know, I did blur the background on another picture last year, then forgot some of the techniques. I've re-discovered how to do it in PS 7 and have done Harley's portrait here. This might have been a good post on the Whippen thread but I'm pleased you all took the time to comment and provide suggestions. Here is my new version after working on it.