My first ever portrait
I need feedback because I just started photography. This is a portrait of my friend making music. What can I improve?
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Quinn Kananack
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12 Comments
Hi Ακης, nice that you tried your first portait and shared it with us.
Rule of thumbs in portrait and general photography is that your main subject has to be the brightest point on the image, the one that capture your interest. In this case it looks like the monitor is your main subject, something to consider.
I hope this helps,
Marc
Thanks for the feedback! I tried to raise the shadows but the nikon d7100 has horrible banding issues so i just crashed the blacks. What would you do in that situation? Keep in mind that, my only light sources in the house where the bright bedroom warm lights and the monitor. I was already shooting at iso 100 but the banding is still there. If you want I can send you the raw file so I can see how a more experienced photographer would edit this.
>> What would you do in that situation?
I'd expose more when I took the shot.
..I don't agree that the face has to be the brightest area, but it should be at least visible.
The monitor was 2.5 stops over-exposed so I was at the limits of my equipment. Also I turned the monitor brightness to 0.
Is it a problem if the bright areas on the monitor over expose? I wouldn't say so - they're just clearly defined white highlights. Then when you do post, dim that part of the image.
Ounce a pixel is burned, a value of 255 or close, you can't get details out of it.
Yes.. you're rather missing the point there. Let me see if I can explain:
If an rgb value goes too high, all that happens is that you lose accurate colour data for that pixel. The point is that if you lose that accuracy for the GUI, why would you give a damn?
Sanely, you wouldn't. If some beige text becomes white instead, who cares? We would if the software was the subject - eg if this was an ad - but in a portrait, no.
***Exposure strategy is about knowing what information you can afford to throw away.***
Did you edit at 8 or 16 bits? Banding is less prone at 16.
16
Marc - you're confusing sensor banding with the colour banding created by limited bit depth. They are two different things.
I wanted to know if it was due to one or the other, now we know
This would be a great time to use multiple exposures to achieve correct exposure on both your subject and the screen. All you need is a tripod or solid surface and some basic Photoshop/GIMP skills.