Performer - C&C are welcome !!

[Tejal]

Dear All,

Today I am sharing a portrait of a classical dance performer. Kindly share your critics for the same.

Regards,

Tejal

IMG_4837 by Tejal Imagination, on Flickr

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured, is that black background a curtain?

[Geoff F]

Obviously a difficult exposure with shadow areas and a head dress which was prone to over exposure. But you have handled the shot well.

At first, I was a little bit confused by the performer's hair at shoulder level. However, after a couple of minutes looking at the image I got used to that area and it now makes sense to me. So not really an issue.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice one Tejal

[Manfred M]

Tejal - nothing to complain about this image from a purely technical standpoint. The exposure is bang on, your focus is sharp and the colours are wonderful. It's a bit unfortunate that there is no real shadow detail, but that is what the theatrical light is all about.

Compositionally, I also like what you have done, but suspect you were limited as to position and shooting angles. I expect your crop was made so as to remove the heads of people in front of you? The whole pose, with the actor's eyes looking up do look a tiny bit odd (eye contact with the camera would have been nice, but highly unlikely).

[rpcrowe]

Great image! However I think a tad of noise reduction and about 6 degrees of counter clockwise rotation can add to the image...

[William W]

Irrespective of how active and boisterous the dance was, it occurs that you did an excellent job at TIMING the Shutter Release, because there is minimal, almost undetectable Subject Movement and that is very VERY difficult to pull at 1/125s Shutter Speed at that close framing/tight cropping, so Brava!

I would be interested to know if you thought of bumping to ISO6400, to allow for that extra stop of Shutter Speed?

I agree with Richard's rotation, especially as it corrects the perception that the dancer is falling backwards.

There appears to be quite an amount of both shadow (and highlight) detail in the large JPEG file. This detail has not been extracted during the Post Processing: better still, there would be probably more data and a larger detail range for extraction, if the capture was made in raw. BTW this is further evidence that the exposure was spot on - Brava.

Quick and rough example here, extracting only some of that detail from the original sized JPEG which is on the left:



WW

[Tejal]

Nicely captured, is that black background a curtain?

Thnx John !! Actually BG was a dark blue color curtain, but this performer was very much in the front and due to light effect, falling on his face, I got the back side dark. I have not done such type of photography of stage performances as well as with such type of lights. Not sure whether I succeed in capturing something good or not. I will share some other pics too very shortly.

[Tejal]

Obviously a difficult exposure with shadow areas and a head dress which was prone to over exposure. But you have handled the shot well.

At first, I was a little bit confused by the performer's hair at shoulder level. However, after a couple of minutes looking at the image I got used to that area and it now makes sense to me. So not really an issue.

Thanks . Light was falling exactly on his face and he was looking upward. The movements were not that fast though to capture some good moment was difficult as facial expressions were changing very fast.

[Tejal]

Very nice one Tejal

thanks Binnur

[Tejal]

Tejal - nothing to complain about this image from a purely technical standpoint. The exposure is bang on, your focus is sharp and the colours are wonderful. It's a bit unfortunate that there is no real shadow detail, but that is what the theatrical light is all about.

Compositionally, I also like what you have done, but suspect you were limited as to position and shooting angles. I expect your crop was made so as to remove the heads of people in front of you? The whole pose, with the actor's eyes looking up do look a tiny bit odd (eye contact with the camera would have been nice, but highly unlikely).

Thanks Manfred. Stage was quite high, almost 4.5 ft and we were standing or bending below that, so that we do not create disturbance to the viewers. It was difficult to capture the whole body. If we try to capture the whole body then back side light would have created problem. I will share some pics of stage too, to understand the filed. I think, it will be more useful to understand how to capture and what could be done in such type of field situation.

[Tejal]

Great image! However I think a tad of noise reduction and about 6 degrees of counter clockwise rotation can add to the image...

Thanks Richard for the valuable suggestion. It is looking nice .

[Tejal]

Irrespective of how active and boisterous the dance was, it occurs that you did an excellent job at TIMING the Shutter Release, because there is minimal, almost undetectable Subject Movement and that is very VERY difficult to pull at 1/125s Shutter Speed at that close framing/tight cropping, so Brava!

I would be interested to know if you thought of bumping to ISO6400, to allow for that extra stop of Shutter Speed?

I agree with Richard's rotation, especially as it corrects the perception that the dancer is falling backwards.

There appears to be quite an amount of both shadow (and highlight) detail in the large JPEG file. This detail has not been extracted during the Post Processing: better still, there would be probably more data and a larger detail range for extraction, if the capture was made in raw. BTW this is further evidence that the exposure was spot on - Brava.

Quick and rough example here, extracting only some of that detail from the original sized JPEG which is on the left:



WW

thanks for your feedback. To be very honest I was very much scared of grains in high ISO as in reducing ISO, it gives softness to the picture. So, just for that reason, I generally dont go above 3200 ISO. May be I am wrong... But I think I must try it.

[Shadowman]

Thnx John !! Actually BG was a dark blue color curtain, but this performer was very much in the front and due to light effect, falling on his face, I got the back side dark. I have not done such type of photography of stage performances as well as with such type of lights. Not sure whether I succeed in capturing something good or not. I will share some other pics too very shortly.

You did well on both the dancer and treatment of the background.

[William W]

. . . I generally dont go above 3200 ISO. May be I am wrong... But I think I must try it.

I don't know either.

I have not used an EOS 1100D and I have no idea what are its limitations.

What I do know is it is not about being 'right' or 'wrong' - it is all about finding out what is possible and then finding the reasonable limits of that possible.

For example, I once tried pushing Tri-X to ASA6400 and it didn't work out all that well - so that means either maybe it couldn't be done well or I couldn't do it well: I didn't try again because I didn't ever have another use for ASA6400, but I was very efficient at pushing Tri-X to ASA3200. All it took was a reasonable amount of practice; and a little modifying of the developer and the development process.

The point is, your image is an example that a 'pro-sumer' camera and the 'kit lens' can make technically good images in minorly adverse lighting conditions and reasonably testing shooting scenarios - especially if one takes into account that there is definitely more shadow and highlight detail in the file which can be extracted: this very point which many photographers, especially many 'gear head forum warriors' (please note - none noticeable at CiC), should take to heart: it's not about the quest for attaining the "next gear upgrade", it is firstly about understanding photography and its principles and using the equipment at hand to master that Craft and those Principles.

WW

[Tejal]

You did well on both the dancer and treatment of the background.

Thanks John

[Tejal]

I don't know either.

I have not used an EOS 1100D and I have no idea what are its limitations.

What I do know is it is not about being 'right' or 'wrong' - it is all about finding out what is possible and then finding the reasonable limits of that possible.

For example, I once tried pushing Tri-X to ASA6400 and it didn't work out all that well - so that means either maybe it couldn't be done well or I couldn't do it well: I didn't try again because I didn't ever have another use for ASA6400, but I was very efficient at pushing Tri-X to ASA3200. All it took was a reasonable amount of practice; and a little modifying of the developer and the development process.

The point is, your image is an example that a 'pro-sumer' camera and the 'kit lens' can make technically good images in minorly adverse lighting conditions and reasonably testing shooting scenarios - especially if one takes into account that there is definitely more shadow and highlight detail in the file which can be extracted: this very point which many photographers, especially many 'gear head forum warriors' (please note - none noticeable at CiC), should take to heart: it's not about the quest for attaining the "next gear upgrade", it is firstly about understanding photography and its principles and using the equipment at hand to master that Craft and those Principles.

WW

Agree with you. Experiment is necessary. With my 1100D even in 3200 ISO, image gets too much grain. About the utilization of camera, yes, i m trying to experiment with my camera and lens whatever I have. Want to do best utilization of what I have .

[Rebel]

Great shot Tejal!

[William W]

"Grain" (noise) is not necessarily bad and there are good noise reduction programs.

To lessen the appearance of noise it is very important to expose as far to the right as possible, especially when using high ISO - sometimes it might benefit to blow some highlights to allow an adequate exposure for the main Subject.

WW

[selig1656]

The colors are so rich and the facial details are captured so well