Love this photo! I even like all the stray hairs, except for the one going across her face. I feel like it takes away from her eyes, which are really beautiful, cus it goes across her right eye.
I would have also cropped a little from the top of her head so her eyes go closer towards a third from the top of the image.
Lovely natural girl in lovely natural light with well judged fill-in flash, although perhaps a fraction less flash might have worked even better. The long hair is distracting, the others are fine. Ideally one should use off camera flash and a softer more difused source to avoid the pin point reflections and the charicteristic flash gun style of modelling to her face, but if you did not have such kit available this is a pretty good picture, although for a PORTRAIT, I would argue that the right lighhting should be available, or it is just a snap shot or at best just a photograph. The sunlight seems rather green, strangely, in fact there is some green in her face too, you might want to have a go at fixing that. You have used shallow depth of field to produce a lovely out of focus and complimentary background. Nice picture.
Thanks, I used on-camera flash with a bounce card. Adjusted some of the color and exposure to the face, both which I had bumped a bit in post. Changes below
The lower one has natural looking colour. The hair has burned out which is a shame. If your camera can shoot at a higher shutter speed, with the flash, then increasing the shutter speed would allow you to get this highlight under control and darkening the background a bit, which would also be helpful, in my view. If her face is flash lit this would not change so much as a result. Her face is well shot so well done there.
The upper one is harder to critique, technically. I suspect you have the balance between the flesh and the ambient light to extreme. In other words by reducing the power of your flash and so opening your aperture, we would see more daylight, which would also combine with the flash in a more subtle way making the shaddow less obvious and so it would be much nicer. However you already have shallow depth of field so you are obviously quite wide open, so maybe it is a late evening shot, with little ambient light, seems likely. Perhaps you could have used a slower shutter speed to add ambience and reduce the extreme balance between the flash and ambient light. Of course, you need to consider the risk of camera shake and subject movement. I guess with care and flash with such a static subject and a lens without stabilisation you could work down to 1/30 or with experience maybe 1/20th of a second but incresing the ISO would be safer than going to that lengh and then reducing the shutter speed to something more manageable. Of course, image stabilisation would help avoid camera shake, given that your subject is not likely to move much in this style of shot.
I agree about the flash needing softening to avoid the sharp shadow edge. I think raising it a bit would have helped too, so the shaddow of her noise is not horizontal but at more 45 degrees, as per Rembrandt lighting.
Keep up the good work, you must be learning and honing some very important basic skills that will serve you wel for ever.
Don't forget to do something about the light shapper/reflector to soften your flash, which will help a lot.
Thanks for taking so much time to offer advice, it's much appreciated.
Both shots were at F2.2 and 1/200 with Flash. It's a Nikon D750, so that's the highest shutter speed unfortunately. I just got it, and that was the one negative I didn't like. Interestingly, the shots were taken back to back at the same park but different locations.
The original photo was with a D7100, so it gets up to to 1/250 shutter speed, so maybe that helped with the highlights on the original. Neither lens I generally use has VR: 85MM 1.4 (used in the bottom two photos) and 50mm 1.8 (used in original). ISOs were low on both, I generally shoot using auto-ISO, with a maximum set.
I just ordered several Magpod modifiers, they look interesting and portable and hopefully will help. I should have some fun playing with them.
I popped the green saturation in post in the original, so here it is with it taken down. Maybe a little better.
I have misplaced my glasses so can barely see, really. So I'll keep this brief. That looks much better colour and the exposure looks good for the background and the girl. It is pehaps still a bit green on the hair/background but I can't see well enough to be sure, I know it sounds stupid but there we are. It is very late and I don't want to disturb the house looking any more to find them.
I have never used auto ISO and see no point but then I am old school, coming from the time when to change ISO (ASA or DIN as we called it) we had to take a roll of film out of our camera and load a different film stock. In my opinion the less auto functionality, the better. It must surely become an uncontrolled and unpredictable variable, which will make learning about balancing flash with ambient light much harder and controlling the balance impossible. I see no advantage and it may be the prime reason for the stange disparity between the look of your 3 shots. Or maybe not, but that is my point, who knows.
All focal plane shutters are problematic when syncing flash in daylight. The difference between 1/200 and 1/250 however is very slight. In my college days and in my early working life cameras had a sync speed of1/60 or the latest were sometimes 1/90, which was seen as a big step in the right direction. High speed sync flash kit is such a blessing, for those who have it. and leaf shutters are so much more professional again but then we are into an entirely different price range, unfotunately. Remember that your sync speed is the maximum speed you can use with flash, not the only speed you can use. There is no reason to not use slower shutter speeds if you need to brighten the ambient side of the lighting.
Anyway your picture looks great to this blind old photographer. Well done.
Love this photo! I even like all the stray hairs, except for the one going across her face. I feel like it takes away from her eyes, which are really beautiful, cus it goes across her right eye.
I would have also cropped a little from the top of her head so her eyes go closer towards a third from the top of the image.
Really great shot otherwise!
Thank you, I appreciate the feedback.
Lovely natural girl in lovely natural light with well judged fill-in flash, although perhaps a fraction less flash might have worked even better. The long hair is distracting, the others are fine. Ideally one should use off camera flash and a softer more difused source to avoid the pin point reflections and the charicteristic flash gun style of modelling to her face, but if you did not have such kit available this is a pretty good picture, although for a PORTRAIT, I would argue that the right lighhting should be available, or it is just a snap shot or at best just a photograph. The sunlight seems rather green, strangely, in fact there is some green in her face too, you might want to have a go at fixing that. You have used shallow depth of field to produce a lovely out of focus and complimentary background. Nice picture.
Thanks, I used on-camera flash with a bounce card. Adjusted some of the color and exposure to the face, both which I had bumped a bit in post. Changes below
Nice. If you were to reduce the green from the background, including the highlights in her hair, I think you woud have nailed it.
Tried to do some OCF today, but think I need a better modifier, hopefully one small and transportable. And I'm guessing it needs to be set up higher?
The lower one has natural looking colour. The hair has burned out which is a shame. If your camera can shoot at a higher shutter speed, with the flash, then increasing the shutter speed would allow you to get this highlight under control and darkening the background a bit, which would also be helpful, in my view. If her face is flash lit this would not change so much as a result. Her face is well shot so well done there.
The upper one is harder to critique, technically. I suspect you have the balance between the flesh and the ambient light to extreme. In other words by reducing the power of your flash and so opening your aperture, we would see more daylight, which would also combine with the flash in a more subtle way making the shaddow less obvious and so it would be much nicer. However you already have shallow depth of field so you are obviously quite wide open, so maybe it is a late evening shot, with little ambient light, seems likely. Perhaps you could have used a slower shutter speed to add ambience and reduce the extreme balance between the flash and ambient light. Of course, you need to consider the risk of camera shake and subject movement. I guess with care and flash with such a static subject and a lens without stabilisation you could work down to 1/30 or with experience maybe 1/20th of a second but incresing the ISO would be safer than going to that lengh and then reducing the shutter speed to something more manageable. Of course, image stabilisation would help avoid camera shake, given that your subject is not likely to move much in this style of shot.
I agree about the flash needing softening to avoid the sharp shadow edge. I think raising it a bit would have helped too, so the shaddow of her noise is not horizontal but at more 45 degrees, as per Rembrandt lighting.
Keep up the good work, you must be learning and honing some very important basic skills that will serve you wel for ever.
Don't forget to do something about the light shapper/reflector to soften your flash, which will help a lot.
Thanks for taking so much time to offer advice, it's much appreciated.
Both shots were at F2.2 and 1/200 with Flash. It's a Nikon D750, so that's the highest shutter speed unfortunately. I just got it, and that was the one negative I didn't like. Interestingly, the shots were taken back to back at the same park but different locations.
The original photo was with a D7100, so it gets up to to 1/250 shutter speed, so maybe that helped with the highlights on the original. Neither lens I generally use has VR: 85MM 1.4 (used in the bottom two photos) and 50mm 1.8 (used in original). ISOs were low on both, I generally shoot using auto-ISO, with a maximum set.
I just ordered several Magpod modifiers, they look interesting and portable and hopefully will help. I should have some fun playing with them.
I popped the green saturation in post in the original, so here it is with it taken down. Maybe a little better.
I have misplaced my glasses so can barely see, really. So I'll keep this brief. That looks much better colour and the exposure looks good for the background and the girl. It is pehaps still a bit green on the hair/background but I can't see well enough to be sure, I know it sounds stupid but there we are. It is very late and I don't want to disturb the house looking any more to find them.
I have never used auto ISO and see no point but then I am old school, coming from the time when to change ISO (ASA or DIN as we called it) we had to take a roll of film out of our camera and load a different film stock. In my opinion the less auto functionality, the better. It must surely become an uncontrolled and unpredictable variable, which will make learning about balancing flash with ambient light much harder and controlling the balance impossible. I see no advantage and it may be the prime reason for the stange disparity between the look of your 3 shots. Or maybe not, but that is my point, who knows.
All focal plane shutters are problematic when syncing flash in daylight. The difference between 1/200 and 1/250 however is very slight. In my college days and in my early working life cameras had a sync speed of1/60 or the latest were sometimes 1/90, which was seen as a big step in the right direction. High speed sync flash kit is such a blessing, for those who have it. and leaf shutters are so much more professional again but then we are into an entirely different price range, unfotunately. Remember that your sync speed is the maximum speed you can use with flash, not the only speed you can use. There is no reason to not use slower shutter speeds if you need to brighten the ambient side of the lighting.
Anyway your picture looks great to this blind old photographer. Well done.