My first beach photoshoot

ShepsMom

I had a threat going in "Techniques" forum regarding beach shots, so for those who saw it, i'm posting a few that i took that day.

Let me tell ya, the lighting was good, but it was getting quiet dark around 6pm, and i was hoping for some sunset, but it was kind of dusky and cloudy. Out of 300 shots i took i only liked may be 100 or so.

I used my 18-200 which i'm considering selling, as i wasn't happy with it's preformance, and this is the only lens i had to take group shots.

They were a fun people, however, they were all dressed for dinner, limiting some opportunities with sitting, they didn't want to sit anywhere LOL.


Anyway, would love to hear your honest opinions, critique, and anything else you might add.


The whole crue

1


2 Tsssk, i have one without the tree (right side)


Heading to the beach

3



More crazy people

4



5



Some loving

6



Girls

7



Boys

8



Friends

9



The youngest daughter.
10



11


12


Daddy's girl

13


Thank you for looking.

Elaine

Hey, I think you did quite well with the light! What a nice looking bunch, all dressed up.

#1 - Nice expressions and composition. It seems they are looking down a bit, which usually isn't as flattering. I wonder if there had been more space between the group and the trees, if the trees would have been a bit out of focus and provided more of a backdrop than being part of the group. IMO, they are a little too prominent here. Still, a nice shot of the group, which is difficult to do!

You got some fun shots too! Good job! The angles are slightly steep for my taste, but still captured great moments.

I like the juxtaposition of the fancy dress and equipment(?) in #12.

Over all, an excellent group of shots! The colors are nice, they are crisp and they capture wonderful expressions and togetherness.

joshhuntnm

I agree, great shots overall, but it looks a little too much like the trees are growing out of their heads in thirst two. Maybe that could be photoshoped?

I really like the one where they are all looking down in a circle. Are you laying on the sand?

rwdfresno

Well first let me preface this by saying I am by no means any sort of proffesional and unfortunatly I am a total amateur when it comes to artificial lighting. On the other hand I have been trying to school myself on the use of non natural lighting so I have been looking at thousands of photographs trying to disect them.

If I was to be criticle, with the exception of 10,12,15, I feel the the lighting of the people feels a little un-natural. It just seems as if it is coming from un-natural angles. On a beach I would expect some more defined shadows, especially around dusk. Of course, you want to highlight the subjects with some softer light but it just feels a little bit un-natural to me. I feel almost as if the light on the subjects is too disimilar to the light in the background to feel natural. I also feel like the sand is sort of being illuminated too much almost to the point of being washed out.

Ryan

In number 1 it looks like the subjects are well lit however the palm trees being so well illumuinated from below feels unatural. I agree some distance from them would increase the appeal of the picture.

I think you did a great job on some of the creative posing which is an area that I am never much good at since I am such a process person and have a hard time thinking out side of the box.

ShepsMom

Thank you Elaine, Josh and fresno.

Few things here. I'm still trying to learn lighting, in this case i used my sb-800 with light diffuser. Apperantly, as you mentioned, it does look artificial, and i have noticed that myself. I need to find other means of lighting here, point well taken.
Angles, these are just for fun, and i have original shots with no angles, i can see what you're saying Elaine about steepness, fault on my part, of course!

Trees, there were only 3 available, i wanted to have something on background and now i see what you see, growing out of their heads!! I won't do cloning as it's going to be noticeble, i let customer choose what she likes.
Usually we get very critical about our shots, where customer might not even notice our mistakes, but it doesn't mean you have to stop learning.

Scott_Quier

As you say, we are more critical of our photos than are our clients. I believe your clients are going to love these.

Oh, and I sent you some PM.

saurora

Marina I think you did a really super job especially on posing, and that is the hardest part! You can learn to adjust your flash settings in time, but posing is a real challenge and I think you did quite well particularly with the less formal poses. I think the family will be really pleased with these, I particularly like the "girls" shot and think it is going to be a favorite for them. My pics of the bunch were, #4,5,7,10,12 & 13. One thing you might try with the "trees growing out of their head" is to do a duplicate layer in PS and use the gaussine blur. Then all you have to do is use a brush to brush away the effect on the places where you don't want the blur...it's really simple and you don't have to be too meticulous. You can also set the opacity of how much you are brushing away as you might want to leave some of the blur on the people too. I did a really quickie workup here, I hope you don't mind my posting. If you do, let me know and I will remove it. You could also choose to possibly desaturate the background slightly and/or use a curves adjustment to darken it. There are numerous things you could try to make the trees less prominent. I also added a very slight vignette. Over all I think you did great!

joshhuntnm

Respectfully, I disagree about the lighting. I agree it doesn't look completely natural--it looks better than natural. It looks to my eye that you did something to improve raw natual light, get red of shadows, change color temp etc.

ShepsMom

saurora wrote:

Saurara, thank you for your comments and opinion. I don't mind you touching up on my shots at all.
However, on this particular shot, you can tell it's been manipulated, it looks somewhat "oveprocessed", may be? I really didn't want to edit much of this, i know some shots can use few touch ups. I think i'll leave it up to the client, at the end, what matter is, what client want. I would be interested to see what they actually pick , always a surprise!

Anyway, thank you again for trying to help.

ShepsMom

joshhuntnm wrote:

Respectfully, I disagree about the lighting. I agree it doesn't look completely natural--it looks better than natural. It looks to my eye that you did something to improve raw natual light, get red of shadows, change color temp etc.

I actually wouldn't mind some shadows, but it really bothered me that sunset wasn't plaing nicely, or better yet, there was none!! It was kind of disappointing, as you always look forward to some nice lighting with really nice sunset colors.

Thank you for the comments!!

JenGrace

Love the crazy expressions in number 4...it's even funnier because the girl in front just has a nice smile and seems clueless that the people behind her are cutting up. In some of the photos, especially 8 and 11, the people look separated from the background, almost like they're in front of a studio backdrop. This looks like it was a fun group to work with.

Scott_Quier

Getting rid of all the shadows is usually not something you want to do. They lend depth to the facial features. IMO, no shadow is a bad thing, just as too much shadow is not desirable.

RE: saurora's processing. I think she may have a good idea there. Create the layer, apply the blur, mask out the areas you don't want blurred, reduce the opacity of the blur layer. A judicious use of the opacity slider will result is the trees looking OOF, not over processed. She did say that it was a quick job to provide an idea, not a finished product.

ShepsMom

I will give it a try Scott and Saurora, you need to slap me couple of times to wake me up. I'll post what i'll come up with. Thanks again!

Thank you Jen for taking a pick!

jeffreaux2

Scott_Quier wrote:

Getting rid of all the shadows is usually not something you want to do. They lend depth to the facial features. IMO, no shadow is a bad thing, just as too much shadow is not desirable.

RE: saurora's processing. I think she may have a good idea there. Create the layer, apply the blur, mask out the areas you don't want blurred, reduce the opacity of the blur layer. A judicious use of the opacity slider will result is the trees looking OOF, not over processed. She did say that it was a quick job to provide an idea, not a finished product.

I agree...especially the part about the shadows.

Overall I think you did a nice job. I personally would have liked to see them all barefoot in the group shot that shows some in shoes....some not. It is a matter of opinion, but to me seeing someone on the beach in shoes is....well unatural. Of course my 2 cents is worth......2 cents!

Overall, nice job.:D

Swartzy

My take
These are simply over processed. Nice exposure, focus, good comp but each photo looks as though the people were "placed" in the background in PS. Quite honestly, real shadows, elegant light will make or break a natural looking photograph. It's readily apparent that these in a "pre-processed" mode look much better than the treatment given here. I'd back off the ultra clean look and make them more realistic....give them character, give them some edging with natural shadows as you shot them. Don't attempt to "clean them" to the point of a superficial "digital" look.

I'll bet with the originals, simply doing a nice curves layer with possibly a slight highlight/shadows layer and painted mask is all that's necessary for these and would be remarkable.

ShepsMom

Swartzy, thanks for your opinion. I'm not sure what do you mean by "overprocessed". Are you refering to the very first shot, or all of them? I shot in RAW, i adjusted curves, saturation, contrast, blah, blah... There was no artificial placements of people, though it might appear such, just wondering. If you would like to see an original RAW file, i'll be glad to share.

pathfinder

Marina, I think you did a very nice job.

The dark sky was a nice asset in several of your images. Very nice separation of foreground and background lighting. Good color and good capture of personalities. Well done!

ShepsMom

Thank you Pathfinder for encouraging words. I'm freaking out here about the shadows Can i add them somehow so i doesn't look artificial?

pathfinder

These were obviously shot with fill flash to someone who knows what that looks like, but nonetheless, I like the appearance of your images.
I do not think you can add shadows after the fact in PS, that would look nice, nor do you need to. The sky was obviously overcast, and there was very little real shadow due to the overcast sky. The only real shadow is behind your subjects, cast by your speedlite.

Would sidelighting have looked nice? Sure, but there is nothing wrong with what you did either, given the equipment you had available.

I bet the family will love these. Be confident and be happy

Scott_Quier

pathfinder wrote:

I bet the family will love these. Be confident and be happy

ShepsMom

Ok, thank you guys. I think i will let it rest. Appreicate all your help and suggestiong.

Andy

Of the group shots, #5 is the one. The rest of the group shots are standard and blah... not much you can do when you line 'em up left-right.

The angle shots are a bit OTT.

#7 is nice, although it's not beachy, but it's a very fine shot.

The girl holding the trees, is almost really good - you chopped her hands too much.

DavidS

Very nice. Especially for your first beach shoot. I think you did a great job for such a large group. I really like #5 as well and while the others may not be as creative I think they are well done. I envy your white sand and palm trees.

ShepsMom

Thank you Andy and David. As far as being creative, well, i couldn't do much with them, simply because they didn't want to get close to the water and they couldn't sit anywhere either. Attire was not a beach one .

Mitchell

Marina,
Great shots here for your first beach outing. You got some good keepers and gained some good experience.

I have a few suggestions from my own experience shooting beach portraits a few miles north of you.

1. You just can't count on the sunset. If nature provides you with a nice sunset, take advantage. If not, wait for the sun to go down and take some more dramatic shots with the darker sky. You did that nicely here.

2. I've had my best luck with off camera lighting. For $50 you can buy a decent light stand and universal adapter to hold your SB800. You can then fire it wirelessly from your D200 using commander mode. This will really help with the flat lighting you have here by restoring some shadows to their faces.

3. If they request a beach shoot, suggest casual, beachy attire. You may not have had much control of this, but the formal military attire seen here on the beach is somewhat incongruous.

4. I've taken some of my best shots on the beach by having the subjects walk away and then towards me near the shoreline. This works great for couples and small families. Using a longer lens, you can really get some nice, casual shots.

5. Be careful with your lens selection. Your 18-200mm zoom is not really great at either extreme. You have some distortion of your group shots at the wide end. That lens probably has a sweet spot around 100mm and stopped down a bit.

I like the portrait of the girl in the trees. Nice framing, but a little too tight.

Keep on shooting. The beach can be really tough, but you can sometimes get some really nice shots.

neastguy

I like em... I really like how the colors are so vibrant... some do look overprocessed... but heck... I still like em a lot..... nice job....:D

CookieS

I think they are very nice for a first outing with off camera flash. Did you have a battery pack on your SB800 or did you just wait for recylce time?
It seems like you got good flash coverage even with the diffuser on. How close was your flash to subjects?

I think I would have maybe tried to place the group in the wider clear area Between the palm trees so they were at the edge????

Im also not a fan of steep angles, but you already saw that yourself

* So what about the 18-200 did you NOT like , as im considering renting one for an upcoming event .

ps: I was in town this week and did get to shoot a few flamingos, ( my shoot /workshop) was at jungle gardens So i was already there. Beautiful weather ( too Many People) We went to the beach afterwards and MY GOSH, the fog had rolled in like pea soup. no sunset for the second half of our shoot. some were cool, but it was a bit drippy and damp for me to feel comfortable about my equipment out in it .

ShepsMom

Thanks Cookie, so now you know how the weather didn't play nicely .

I'm taking all the advice and suggestions here, yeah, looking at it now, is just BLAH!! shots.
Regarding 18-200, buy it, it's a great walk-around lens for pretty much everything, except this type photoshoot. Overall, i'm not happy with the outcome in quality of the shots. Zoom over 100mm creates a lot of distortion, so you have to be careful there. I'm looking into 3rd party lens, may be Tamron 17-50 f2.8, as Nikon is darn expensive.

Thanks again for taking a look!

PS: Make sure you post our Flamingos and other Jungle Garden's stuff, love to see them!!

Mitchell

CookieS wrote:

* So what about the 18-200 did you NOT like , as im considering renting one for an upcoming event .

Cookie, while I don't own this lens, I'd be reluctant to recommend using it as a single lens solution for a professional shoot. As Marina can attest, this lens has distortion issues at both ends and is not particularly fast. If you are going to rent some glass, consider what focal lengths you need to cover, and then rent the appropriate pro level zoom.

I do 90% of my event photography with a Nikkor 28-70mm, f2.8 zoom. Others prefer the 17-55mm which I don't own. I usually bring along a faster prime (85mm or 50mm, f1.4) in case I cannot use a flash or need more speed.