Couple of new shots

CarnalSigh

I've been working on my portrait skills and had an opportunity to get a few photos of some teens. This 14 yr old was my best model. She was very patient and IMO the camera loved her. These were done in her living room with available light on the b&w, and on-camera flash on the color. Just wanted to share. This one was done with a Canon T50 using a 50mm lens at f4. The color was with my 400D, using the 28-135mm IS lens at F5.6 135mm.

CarnalSigh

After this series of pix, I decided that the picture styles setting on portrait mode sucks, since it backs off the sharpness a bit. I'm sticking with standard mode from now on I think.

Seneca

My only comment is ...on the second picture...which this is just personal preference of course...is next time straighten out her necklace....it looks like it's caught up on her collar. JMHO. Whenever I do a portrait...I always look at every detail...from hair away from eyes...to jewerly.

But good work.

CarnalSigh

Thanks for the comment. The necklace..believe it or not....is being worn over her collar for some reason. I saw the same thing and looked at other shots and saw it. Apparently it's a teen thing. Odd eh? On my projects...like this one...I tell them ahead of time *NO JEWELRY* but she managed to get the necklace and bracelet past me without me noticing. Oh well.

Scott_Quier

CarnalSigh wrote:

After this series of pix, I decided that the picture styles setting on portrait mode sucks, since it backs off the sharpness a bit. I'm sticking with standard mode from now on I think.

I really like the pose and conversion of the first one. Very nice.

With respect to camera mode - consider shooting portraits in manual mode. You can control the aperature, the shutter speed, the flash - everything related to the exposure and the sharpness of the image. Then, later, if you decide that you want to soften the shot a touch, PS (or similar) will be there for you. You can always soften an image in post, it's really difficult to sharpen a soft image.

CarnalSigh

The b&w above was shot with the 20 yr old T50 using b&w film. No conversion.

The 400d is anudda story. I've been playing with the settings, trying to get away from the auto modes. The style I was referring to on the 400D is inside the menu....not the knob on top. It's the same place you can set it to monochrome if you want to. Standard and portrait are options as well. I guess that if you set it to portrait, it backs off on the sharpness 2 clicks, while the standard setting does not. Not sure under what circumstances these settings overrule the knob settings on top. I know that if you set it to monochrome, all the photos taken in aper, shutter, P or M modes are in monochrome, but the knob settings like portrait, landscape etc take it out of monochrome and make it in color. That's why I am assuming that even tho I took the photo in manual, it was using the picture style of Portrait. I wish someone who knows the 400d well could speak up and offer some insight.