Storytime with Grandpa - C&C appreciated

[D L]

1/25s, f/5, 70mm, ISO 200, single off-camera flash, Nikon crop frame

I guess I'm trying to capture the moments you don't really remember as a two year old.

I'd particularly appreciate comments on composition, lighting and post processing, but anything that catches your eye.
Cheers,
DL

[bnnrcn]

The image looks a bit underexposed but as far as I know this is one of the PP techniques in B&W , so if this was your goal, you seem to have managed it well Even so I would lift the shadows in grandpa's face a bit. I like the composition . Such a beautiful baby

BTW, I'm not experienced in portrait shots and I find your PP work nice and interesting. I think I will learn some more from the experienced members' comments in this thread

[D L]

Binnur, I think you're right, he is underexposed. Not an artistic decision, and its now too late to claim it as such
I brought it the whole image up, then knocked down the exposure on the front edge of the book. I also cloned out the branding on Grandpa's shirt.

[bnnrcn]

It looks better to me David, let's see what the others will say

[flashback]

I brought exposure of the image up. I dropped the front edge of the book back down a bit. Then I decided to clone out the logo on grandpa's shirt.

I think this version is much, much better. Great conversion to B&W and removing the logo on the shirt cleaned up the whole image.

[bnnrcn]

I posted my second comment after seeing your revised edit, but now I can see that your revised version was posted after my second comment, I don't understand how this happened

PS. I have just seen your explanation about tinypic, now it is all clear David

It looks better to me David, let's see what the others will say

[Geoff F]

As an alternative, you may get away with just increasing the highlights and keeping the shadows fairly dark if you wanted a more contrasty scene.

Is there a slight blue cast with the edit?

A very good composition.

[Shadowman]

I like the original better than the edit only because the edit looks like two different images; one superimposed over the other. In the original, the tones of each seem to be more significant with the pose as well as lightness/darkness. The child seems to be emerging into the frame, freshly captured, while the older gent seems to be fading into the background.

[Mike Buckley]

The revised version is a huge improvement for me. It's really great that the child is pointing to something in the book. Well done!

To create the monochrome image, did you desaturate or convert using a color filter? For this type of image, it's usually better to use the color filter. When working with caucasians, a green color filter generally works best for providing good skin tones.

[IzzieK]

The second edit looks good to me...and I noticed, if you do not mind my saying so...the gentleman has an ailment called ptosis...look at his eyes, the other one on the left is droopy...he should have that checked by an eye doctor and recommend for operation or he will be bumping into things as he advancedmore in age.

[Manfred M]

David, your second version is certainly an improvement over the first, but you are still underexposed by around 1/2 stop and your black and white points are well off where they should be. I did a screen capture of your shots and overlaid the histogram.





Both the dark side and light side of the histogram are nowhere near where they should be. Look at what happens when I set the black point and white point "correctly".



All of a sudden your exposure and contrast issues are fixed.


Just to round out the analysis. Here is the histogram of your first post. Look how far to the left all the tonal values are.




If you ever plan to print this image, there is a slight modification to this "rule" to compensate for the fact that your printer has a smaller dynamic range than your computer screen and you don't want to block shadow detail in the dark areas and you don't want to be in a situation where the printer deposits no ink and leave a pure white artifact on the print.

[Mike Buckley]

All of a sudden your exposure and contrast issues are fixed.

I think this is a matter of personal choice. Though I prefer the results of the changes you made, I can easily see someone feeling that your changes introduced too much mid-tone contrast if they prefer the softer feel that is provided by less mid-tone contrast, especially with portraits.

[Manfred M]

I think this is a matter of personal choice. Though I prefer the results of the changes you made, I can easily see someone feeling that your changes introduced too much mid-tone contrast if they prefer the softer feel that is provided by less mid-tone contrast, especially with portraits.

Mike - the fix is one where the exposure is "technically correct", and I quite agree that not everyone will necessarily want that. The rule of thumb that we were taught in the B&W darkroom days is that every print should include a full range of tonal values from pure black to pure white. While I know that this is an oversimplification for today, I still tend to work that way in B&W. Old habits die hard...

The second step is adjusting the contrast, once the exposure is correct. There are many tools available to do this, but as you could probably tell from how I displayed the image, my first choice is to do it with curves. Back in the wet darkroom days, we used different grades of paper to control how the contrast would come out. Variable contrast papers used coloured light (via filters) to do the same thing.

[rpcrowe]

I like the lightened version but, might think about adding a slight vignette...

[bnnrcn]

I think I'm one of them Mike. Although Manfred's comment is technically right, I like the softer feel in this image. The grandpa and the baby are sharing a special time together and IMO David's second edit conveys it

I think this is a matter of personal choice. Though I prefer the results of the changes you made, I can easily see someone feeling that your changes introduced too much mid-tone contrast if they prefer the softer feel that is provided by less mid-tone contrast, especially with portraits.

[Mike Buckley]

To bring this discussion about exposure and contrast full circle, all of that is in the control of the photographer and at the photographer's discretion. The lighting, the exposure and the post-processing all affect the final outcome displayed online. If a print is eventually made, the factors involved in making the print will add yet another set of controls placed in the hands of the photographer.

My point is that to achieve the photographer's ideal results, he or she first has to know what they want the outcome to be and has to know how to attend to the lighting, the exposure, the post-processing and the printing to achieve the desired outcome. There is a lot more to the process from beginning to end than simply tweaking the curve in the post-processing software.

[Manfred M]

To bring this discussion about exposure and contrast full circle, all of that is in the control of the photographer and at the photographer's discretion. The lighting, the exposure and the post-processing all affect the final outcome displayed online. If a print is eventually made, the factors involved in making the print will add yet another set of controls placed in the hands of the photographer.

My point is that to achieve the photographer's ideal results, he or she first has to know what they want the outcome to be and has to know how to attend to the lighting, the exposure, the post-processing and the printing to achieve the desired outcome. There is a lot more to the process from beginning to end than simply tweaking the curve in the post-processing software.

Agreed Mike - on the other hand when I see a few things that I question from a technical execution standpoint, I try to go back to basics to see if that helps the poster understand how he got the image that he did. David has indicated that he is working on portraiture in some of his other posts and he has mentioned he is fairly new at it.

When I see a fairly underexposed image and notice that the shot was taken at 1/25th (I believe the synch speed of the D3300 is 1/200th), it strikes me that there needs to be a bit of "back to basics". Even with that slow a shutter speed, there is no real motion blur, so there doesn't seem to be that much ambient light. He says he is using off-camera flash as well, but shooting at f/5 suggests that the flash output is either set too low (he is shooting on manual) or something is absorbing the light.

[Mike Buckley]

That's interesting, Manfred. When I see a photo such as David's first version and then see his revised version, my take is that he is new enough at this stuff that he understandably doesn't yet have the confidence to know how he wants the photo to look before he releases the shutter. Everything else that you mention is important because, once he does know how he wants his images to look, he won't be able to consistently make it happen without gaining a command of those details.

[Mike Buckley]

David,

As I review all of the versions presented here, I wonder if you are familiar with the helpfulness of reviewing the histogram as a guide to understanding why the image looks the way it does and as a guide to understanding how to change the camera settings and post-processing settings to make the image look the way you want it to look. If not, gaining a command of the histogram is one of the most important, initial steps to working with digital photography. CiC has an excellent tutorial of the histogram.

[Manfred M]

That's interesting, Manfred. When I see a photo such as David's first version and then see his revised version, my take is that he is new enough at this stuff that he understandably doesn't yet have the confidence to know how he wants the photo to look before he releases the shutter. Everything else that you mention is important because, once he does know how he wants his images to look, he won't be able to consistently make it happen without gaining a command of those details.

Agreed, again Mike. One of the reasons I outlined the black point / white point approach is that it quickly and easily provides a "correctly exposed" image, especially when one is working in B&W. Once one has that, tweaking other parameters is a lot easier as the basic starting point is a good one.

I know David is fairly new to portrait photography and is working on his improving his skills in that genre. It is something he has mentioned in some of his recent postings.