Beginner, need some advice

brwn*eyed*pixe

I am soo new to photography. I am REALLY nervous about posting pixs here (my hands are even sweating.. haha). There are soo many great photographers here. I took photo classes when I was in highschool and loved it, but it's been about 10 years and forgot all about settings and so forth. I am soo confused with all the settings, ISO, fstops and stuff.. there is soo much to learn. Anway.. I love to take candid pictures. My niece asked me to take her pictures out in the poppy fields, and I agreed. Well, after I saw them on the computer, she looks really orange. She is really tan as it is.. so I think it was a wrong idea to do it there. I didn't use flash because it was sunny. Was I wrong? I haven't done any adjustments in PSE yet.. these are just straight from the camera. Here are some:

Can you see the orange? Also.. I just noticed that I captured a bug right by her arm.. hahaha..



Lighting is a little better in this one.


Wait.. this one I did do some adjustments in PSE. Does it look kinda country? haha.. just laughing at myself.


Ok.. there they are. Please be kind... hahaha.

Swartzy

No need to be nervous. That's what this forum is all about...helping one another, seeing stuff that we miss, sharing ideas, info, and all sorts of cool stuff. I like all 3 of these. Nice and sharp, great selective focus, nice bokeh (blurred background is sweet), great coloring and super poses. Heck, if you've been away for 10 years it certainly doesn't show!

Some will suggest using fill flash when shooting outdoors to balance out the sunlight/shadow areas on your subjects face (which is of course good photographic advice) but on these, I think they work very well. Quite natural and pleasing to the eye.

One thing you want to be careful with (and it's especially true with digital) is not to blow your highlights. If you look at her top (blouse) you'll see the bright areas (highlights) have lost detail because of the bright sun. Most cameras today have highlight warnings (the overly exposed areas will blink at you) to let you know that it's over exposed. Simply lower your exposure compensation a bit when shooting to correct for that...yes, you will have to bring some of the rest of the photo back up to proper exposure in post processing..this is where using a flash outside is key.

Keep posting...we'd love to see more!

Richard

Hi Pixie and welcome to Dgrin


The first one may be a little orange, but I actually prefer it to the color in the third one. I also think flash would have helped some, especially because of the shadow from the hat. The expressions are very good in all three.

As Swartzy said, this is a friendly place and we're glad to help. So don't be shy about posting more and asking questions.

Cheers,

brwn*eyed*pixe

Swartzy - Thank you for the comments and suggestions. I will take note. I do have a 580ex flash but did not use it. I will start practicing with it. The above pictures don't really show what I mean about the orange. Here are pictures:

1.

2. Would have the flash worked here? Or is it the lighting I need to play with?

brwn*eyed*pixe

Richard wrote:

Hi Pixie and welcome to Dgrin


The first one may be a little orange, but I actually prefer it to the color in the third one. I also think flash would have helped some, especially because of the shadow from the hat. The expressions are very good in all three.

As Swartzy said, this is a friendly place and we're glad to help. So don't be shy about posting more and asking questions.

Cheers,

Thanks Richard. I had the flash with me... but didn't take it out. They looked ok on the camera but once I got home.. it was a totally differen't thing. grrr.. FLASH!!

I guess the only way to learn.. is to post.

DonRicklin

brwn*eyed*pixe wrote:

I guess the only way to learn.. is to post.

And to shoot and shoot! and post somemore!

Also look at all the other posts (People anyhow, if that's where your starting) and see what others are shotting and comments made about thiers.

Don

joshhuntnm

Pretty nice pictures for some who says they know nothing about nothing! You will love it here and will learn a lot.

Keep posting!

Seneca

First of all welcome...I come and go, but I know what you are dealing with...we've all been there.

First of all you do need some flash fill when shooting with a high sun...so yes you should've flashed. You need probably an ISO of 200 or so. Your WB is off...set your WB on AWB so you can correct when you post-process. I think you said you use PSE (Elements?). The bug can be healed out.

If you have any other questions...ask away...we all learned like you did. Good luck.

WilliamClark77

Welcome to Dgrin!

Your niece is a doll and the camera clearly loves her. These pics are good. I don't see the orange tint, in a bad way as you describe anyway. It looks like warm evening sun to me. Some good advice has already been given. When I have to shoot in bright, harsh light I like to set my flash on -1 to -2 ev just to help soften the shadows. They'll still be there and look natural, just not quite as dark. Leaving it at 0 exposure compensation gives weird, flat looking lighting, in my opinion of course. Just be sure to set it on high speed sync if conditions call for a fast shutter speed or your cam will default to its max sync shutter speed (1/200 - 1/250 on most cams) and could overexpose if you use a wide aperture (low f number) in bright light. I've NEVER done that .... actually I did that doing Easter pics and my favorite shot of the day was the one I messed up on. Go figure.

Keep posting pics!

Agnieszka

Hi there & welcome to dgrin

You got some wonderful shots, I am sure you got already enough tech advise But your compositions are really good!!! Boy, can't believe you shot that bug ... haha :lynnsite

joshhuntnm

One other thing: that bug is a great place to learn about cloning. YOu can slap that baby right out.

CassisP

those are good. Welcome to the forum. (I havent read the whole thread) but, what Camera do you use?

for yuor first set of pics. I like the first one the best. to me the 2nd one it a little over exposed. but that is just my opinion. D

brwn*eyed*pixe

Ok.. so I zapped out the bug on the first pix. :rambo I have two questions. One - How can I fix the darkness for the this picture? Do you recomend going black and white with these types of photos? or with some texture? Second - I have seen photographers add actions to there photos like color pop and so forth.. but how do these photos look when you actually print them? Do they come out grainy? They look great on the computer but not sure how great they look when you actually send them to get printed.

Thanks everyone for all the great advice.

I don't think I did very well on this picture. She is too dark and the mountains look lopsided. Do you recomend any cropping?


This is an example of the action color pop.
http://shop.nicholev.com/prodpage.aspx?type=a-colorpop

Sorry for all the questions!!

brwn*eyed*pixe

CassisP wrote:

those are good. Welcome to the forum. (I havent read the whole thread) but, what Camera do you use?

for yuor first set of pics. I like the first one the best. to me the 2nd one it a little over exposed. but that is just my opinion. D

Thanks. I am using a Canon Digital Rebel. From what I have read.. I think it's one of the very fist that came out? I have like four different lenses, which I will post as soon as I know how to name them (that's how new I am to this ha!.)

goofry

First off, as said before, these are nice shots for a self proclaimed noob. As you are already aware, the fill flash is a favorite and needed in many situations. Not only will it soften the shadows and open up the midtones, one other advantage when shooting portraits is that you will end up with a catch light in the eyes. This will give you that something extra for the headshots.

One thing on the flash is to learn how to adjust it so that you don't overpower the shot with artificial light.

Good luck, and keep posting. You are off to a good start.

joshhuntnm

there are several ways to brighten. My favorite is with levels. find the levels command and move the left slider to where the graph starts to move up. This control will become your friend. ctrl shift L will do auto levels which also often straightens out a color cast--ie orange in this case.

NateWagner

in response to your last photo. It does seem (at least to my eye) to be leaning a little from left to right so if you were to straighten that a bit. And if you were to bump the exposure up a bit, that might help as well.

To me that last photo seems to be focused on the knees or maybe on the watch. The DOF is shallow enough that the eyes are a bit soft (to my eye), I think this is another example where a flash would have been great if for nothing else than the catchlights in her eyes. I really like the idea of the photo, it's a great location.

As for adding the pop and other actions, if done properly it doesn't necessarily make the photo grainy... taken to an extreme it may.

Nate

brwn*eyed*pixe

NateWagner wrote:

To me that last photo seems to be focused on the knees or maybe on the watch. The DOF is shallow enough that the eyes are a bit soft (to my eye),
Nate

You are SOO right about the focus on the knees. I did not see that. I will take note of focusing on the eyes more.