Portrait help, please?

[Colin Southern]

I almost always keep my auto-focus set to the single point in the center: when I use auto-focus, I want to focus on something specific, then hold halfway and move to get the frame where I want it. I distrust multiple auto-focus points, but maybe that's just me.

Me too - but just to clear up any confusion, I was talking about using just a single AF point - just not the centre one

[Colin Southern]

As Rick says and you can always use the single point of focus to focus on the eye, keep the shutter half depressed, recompose then shoot.

Hi Steve,

I find it easiest just to select the AF point closest to the eye and go from there. By and large, focus and recompose is a PITA when taking a series of shots as it breaks the momentum. Canon also state that focus and recompose can cause focusing errors if shooting within 15 feet and with a wide aperture.

[Maritimer1]

Hi Steve,

I find it easiest just to select the AF point closest to the eye and go from there. By and large, focus and recompose is a PITA when taking a series of shots as it breaks the momentum. Canon also state that focus and recompose can cause focusing errors if shooting within 15 feet and with a wide aperture.

I am really relieved to read this, Colin, because I stink at that technique. I focus, hold the shutter at what I think is half way down and it never seems to work out quite right. Rick and Steve, I've seen the technique mentioned in many places, so I guess I should practice and learn just to be able to add it to my tool box.

Unfortunately I didn't get to take practice shots at our dance tonight as my mom had to go to the hospital with breathing issues so I spent most of the evening there with her.

On the plus side, the staff photos I took last week turned out OK. Our school is quite bright in most areas, so a flash wasn't needed.
These will be put in a memory album along with personal write-ups for a retiring teacher.

Thanks again!

Myra

[rick55]

I hope everything is okay with your mom, Myra.

A couple of changes are likely to make a lot of difference, so we'll just wish you luck tomorrow.

Cheers,
Rick

[Wirefox]

I find it easiest just to select the AF point closest to the eye and go from there. By and large, focus and recompose is a PITA when taking a series of shots as it breaks the momentum. Canon also state that focus and recompose can cause focusing errors if shooting within 15 feet and with a wide aperture.

This makes sense Colin. I never thought about these issues but actually it this is bound to happen if you are close up with a wide aperture. I will have to have a play using off centre focus points. Mmmm this could explain a few inexplicable focusing problems in the past. Cheers

Steve

[Donald]

This makes sense Colin. I never thought about these issues but actually it this is bound to happen if you are close up with a wide aperture. I will have to have a play using off centre focus points.

All of which means I've got to go back to the User Manual to remind myself how to move the focus point around!!

[benm]

Here are a couple of things you might try that have not yet been mentioned:

If you have a filter on the lens take it off.
Clean the lens.

And definitely retake the photo using a tripod. For me, this is the single biggest sharpness improver.

[Wirefox]

Donald

Back of camera, top right, next to the * button. Also doubles as the zoom in (blue magnifying glass over plus sign when viewing shots on LCD). Change the active point using top scroll wheel. I am assuming you still have a 40D

Good luck

Steve

[William W]

Any advice always appreciated and put into practice ASAP Thank you!

. . . well not ASAP, but you might grab a coffee and have a read of this for next time . . .

I have not read all the answers so there will surely be repeats, but these are the key issues I note that should be addressed, regarding the first image:

 F/1.8 is unnecessary, the lens is soft that wide open and also at that shooting distance your DoF is too shallow
 You are using Available Light and the image is UNDEREXPOSED on the shadow skin tones. In this shooting scenario, if one is going to use available light then one must (usually) meter and expose for the SHADOW side of the skin tone – at least take that into account Specifically for this portrait: the dress is dark and has fine detail which needs to be revealed
 Shooting this portrait sans Flash in shadow with back /side lighting is a big ask - and one should use a reflector – Flash Fill would be easier.
 It appears to me that your post processing technique does not adequately address sharpening. Colin Southern is one Sharpening Guru – he has written many words – he will also direct you to books on the topic if you send beer and lobster to his studio.
 You have VEILING FLARE – ever so little but it is there. This caused by strong light getting into the lens an bouncing around . . . it is exacerbated by many elements, the main ones being:
a) Shooting into the light
b) Not using a lens hood
c) Using a Filter
d) Using a Zoom Lens (especially a “Kit Lens”)
e) Using a wider FL lens
f) Using the lens at the wide open aperture or near to it
g) Using cheaper / older designed lenses with poor light baffles and or poor coatings or glass
Veiling Flare presents as a loss of mid-tone contrast and also a milky sheen to the image. Veiling Flare appears worse when the image is underexposed and diagnosing both Veiling Flare and Underexposure singularly is often confused one for the other – but IMO you have both.
 It is likely that you did not nail focus on the Subject’s face - I think the Plane of Sharp Focus is just beyond her face, I guess that you might have been using multiple AF focus points and the camera picked up the fence, not her face. Canon AF points work on CONTRAST Differences. In this shooting scenario it would be better to Focus on the line between her dress and her bust in the centre of her cleavage using only the centre point AF and then recompose. Using F/5.6 or near to it, there will be no parallax error to concern you for a Full Length Shot using a 40D
 Better shooting scenario for this shot would have been something around F/4 and ISO800, assuming you are about ½ stop underexposed (perhaps a bit more, I think) then you would be around 1/25s . . . which is tripod territory (I did not calculate the Exposure but it is a rough calc to indicate that you need to use tripod). Then you will find that the Skin Tones on the Sun side of the Subject will be a little over exposed, but retrievable in post production and that is why you shoot RAW. These fine details is a general comment and you should BRACKET the shots because each light scenario is different and balancing available Light exposures, especially when shooting into the light takes prarctice. Also you will still need to shade that lens better, even using F/4ish there is still a lot of light coming in from the background – and if you have a filter on . . . it take it off.

All that stated I am not sure that the image is lost: here is what you should be getting close to, if you used some soft fill light and nailed the exposure better. Also it has been sharpened.



(I could not determine if the dress is Charcoal or Dark Blue - I chose the former, but it could have been just as easily Blue)

But Post Production is not the same as getting it right, from the get go.

WW

[Sunray]

3. In terms of ISO, stick to full multiples (100, 200, 400, 800 etc - odd steps give more noise eg 800 will give you less noise than 600, and a higher shutter-speed to boot!

Interesting. What is the explanation therefor ?

regards.
Robert

[William W]

the "tweeners" arenot real ISO but use another algorithm to manipulate ISO 100, or ISO200 or ISO400 etc . . also "L" and "H" are the same . . .

I am running outa batteries on my laptop . . . Colin will give the full 20,000 words technical details

CU later AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (battery dies)

WW

[revi]

{... snipped}
 It appears to me that your post processing technique does not adequately address sharpening. Colin Southern is one Sharpening Guru – he has written many words – he will also direct you to books on the topic if you send beer and lobster to his studio.
{... snipped}
WW

Just be careful not to over-sharpen, what I think happened here (look at the necklace and around the mouth, there are halo-like artifacts there...)
Otherwise, a huge improvement, though I might have held back a bit on the dress (it might even be black...)

Cheers,

Remco

PS. Here is one tutorial about sharpening, that also explains about the why, and here is a post linking to very useful threads in the forums (one of which is about sharpening)

[William W]

Just be careful not to over-sharpen, what I think happened here (look at the necklace and around the mouth, there are halo-like artifacts there...)
Otherwise, a huge improvement, though I might have held back a bit on the dress (it might even be black... Cheers, Remco)

Gidday Remco . . .

Just to clarify: that A/B comparison was NOT a FIX . . .

It was an example of “here is what you should be getting close to, if you used some soft fill light and nailed the exposure better. Also it has been sharpened”

To make the "B" sample look something like the final product would be, if it where exposed properly and about F/4 was used and there was some fill light used.

It has been purposely been over-sharpened, so it looks bright, evenly exposed and pops out when viewed as the smaller image size in the thread. And that was using the low res JPEG file. I lifted from the thread originally.

WW

[revi]

Gidday Remco . . .

Just for clarity that A/B comparison was NOT a FIX . . .
{..snip}
It has been purposely been over-sharpened, so it looks bright, evenly exposed and pops out when viewed as the smaller image size in the thread. And that was using the low res JPEG file. I lifted from the thread originally.

WW

Hi WW,

thank you for the clarification.

My remark was mostly for the original poster, to avoid her thinking that that is how it is supposed to look...
Otherwise I like what you did with the 'raw' material you had.

Cheers,

Remco

[William W]

Your comment helped both the Original Poster and others who will read the thread as it highlighted that I was not clear enough, in the way I wrote my original commentary; specifically the sentence above the A/B images I posted.

Writing on forums to provide information, is not the same as a face to face conversation.

***

I do think the Original Poster could get a reasonable result from that Full Res JPEG or RAW file though.

If the image is to be worked on, I would recommend some focus correction also: "Focus Magic" is a good tool.

The dress could be Black – I do think that is likely now I ponder on it a bit more, because to make the image pop I pulled the exposure significantly and I lost saturation. I must admit I only played for a minute or two – as I wrote it was a “what you should be getting - if the shot was taken another way”

Au revoir,

WW

[Lily Quartz]

All that stated I am not sure that the image is lost: here is what you should be getting close to, if you used some soft fill light and nailed the exposure better. Also it has been sharpened.



(I could not determine if the dress is Charcoal or Dark Blue - I chose the former, but it could have been just as easily Blue)

But Post Production is not the same as getting it right, from the get go.

WW

I tried my hand at editing it like ou did (just for practice and ended up with a fairly similar image but I couldn't get it anywhere near as sharp as you did. The face would get all messed up and the dress would be much less detailed than you got it when I got the rest of her was sharpened that much.

[Colin Southern]

I tried my hand at editing it like ou did (just for practice and ended up with a fairly similar image but I couldn't get it anywhere near as sharp as you did. The face would get all messed up and the dress would be much less detailed than you got it when I got the rest of her was sharpened that much.

Hi Lily,

Sharpening doesn't have to be applied to the whole image. With Photoshop one can mask off the area to be sharpened, or sharpen everything and then use the history brush to revert the areas that don't need it. Not sure what program your using, but there should be some way to accomplish it.

[CNelson]

Nice shots, thanks for posting them. I find the advice very helpful as I look over your shoulder.

Chuck

[Maritimer1]

Thank you again for all the great advice and for tweaking the photos. I’m trying to learn how to go from lucky candids to posed portraits and it is not easy! All photos were taken with the Canon 40D and a Canon 50mm lens. Time of day was about half way between supper and sundown. It was still bright enough that I had to hide her among the greenery to keep the bright rays away.

I tried the focus on the eyes and then recompose method. I think I am starting to get the hang of it! Because a lot of the shots were vertical, I tended to use the “to the right” AF point quite a bit. All these were taken hand held.

The dress is black which makes things a bit trickier and she is very, very pale. Getting her face, arms and dress all matching in exposure was a toss-up. I tried using Curves on selected areas in a few of my other photos. It was mildly successful.

So, here are a few of my results. C&C always welcome and appreciated.


Rachael in Garden
1/90
f/5.6
ISO 125
Spot metering
Manual Exposure/0 compensation


Face only
1/350
f/4.5
ISO 320 ( must have been on auto ISO)
Spot metering
Manual exposure/0 compensation
Some tweaking of(edited to correct to lowering CLARITY; not vibrancy levels) in ACR for a muted look


With Umbrella
1/90
f/5.6
ISO-500
Spot metering
Manual exposure/0 compensation


Myra

[Dave Humphries]

VERY nice Myra,

I hope you, and Rachael, are pleased with them, you should be.

I can see what you mean about pale complexion (my family has that too), it is a bit of an issue with #1, but I think a better result might be obtained using layers, masks and selective processing. It all takes time and I don't have the skill, but I suspect you can have a second go from the RAW anyway as you seem to be doing alright.

You have progressed a long way in a week, well done.