model in the making :)

[Noddy]

Hi all

babies first visit at the beach......

Regards
Ryan

C&C welcome

[Mark von Kanel]

well hes certainly striking the pose!! again looks soft around the eyes, i dont understand why because at f6.3 you should have enough DOF might be down to the resolution your posting at. we will have to wait for someone who knows what hes talking about visits!

[kdoc856]

Hi, Ryan

Really cute picture (my wife loved it especially).
Mark's point is a good one-the focus is just the tiniest smidge forward- I suspect you took this with a relatively short focal length and were quite close to your son-hence the very shallow Dof. If your camera allows, you might try taking advantage of selective focus, and put your focus point right on one of his eyes.

A backlit subject at least doubles the difficulty and work of achieving proper exposure. but you did very well. There is probably some preserved detail in the sand, so some highlight reduction on the sand and hat brim would probably be helpful.

You might be able to get a little pop in his eyes with some LCE and saturation boost.

Hope this helps a little.

Kevin

[kdoc856]

Ryan,

Here's a quick play at what I meant. I'll take it down if you prefer (I personally appreciate it if folks take the time to demonstrate what they mean with an edit, but some would rather just do it themselves, so sorry if I offend)

[Noddy]

Ryan,

Here's a quick play at what I meant. I'll take it down if you prefer (I personally appreciate it if folks take the time to demonstrate what they mean with an edit, but some would rather just do it themselves, so sorry if I offend)

Thanks you all for taking the time to comment. I am here to learn and appreciate your comments.

Have a great weekend
Regards
Ryan

[Mark von Kanel]

Ryan, you took this at f6.3 1/200 of a sec at 50mm iso 100 it should be sharp i dont know why it isnt what focus set up are you using, Hopefully Colin our portrait guru will see the thread and chip in

[Colin Southern]

Ryan, you took this at f6.3 1/200 of a sec at 50mm iso 100 it should be sharp i dont know why it isnt what focus set up are you using, Hopefully Colin our portrait guru will see the thread and chip in

Hi Mark,

I'm guess the camera was on auto-AF point select - which means it'll usually focus on whatever is closest - which in this case means the tip of the nose. One really needs to get an AF point on the eye area for this kind of shot.

Regardless, it hasn't been sharpened properly though, and I'm getting that a correct sharpening workflow around the eyes would bring it up to spec.

[Jan de Vries]

I have downloaded the photo.
What I can see with my software (Nikon Capture NX2) that the photo looks so much better already with little amount of unsharp mask. Maybe forgotten to use that after resizing for the CiC format.
In photo #1 I have only used a little amount of unsharp mask.



I think that Colin is right with the AF. Looks to me that the AF used the edge of the cap.
The sharpness on front of the cap is good and the DOF stops just at the front of the face.
To avoid this I use now the separate AF button on the back of my camera. Half pressing the shutter button activate only the AE. Not also the AF anymore. You have to get used to work like this but after a while it is so much nicer.

I like the photo and I tried to see what I could do. (photo #2)
- Used the litte unsharp mask only selective. Eyes, nose, lips, hand and cap.
- Light & Curves selective on the background. Litte darker so the face will popup more.
and with Nik Color Efex Pro filters:
- Dynamic skin softener. To get the softness of the baby face better.
- Tonal contrast selective on the sand. To get the sand on the hand stronger in the photo.



Hopefully you like my result too.

Regards Jan

[Noddy]

wow you guys really know what you are doing.

thanks for all this info and advice

Regards
Ryan