Just a few shots

King Damager · 6 Feb 2013 at 16:19

A couple from the snow times, and one of a friend I managed to nab whilst we were working the other day. First kind of casual people shot I've really done.

Not really caring for C&C on the Snow ones (although feel free to), looking more so for C&C on the people shot.

Snowberry by King Damager, on Flickr

Sam by King Damager, on Flickr

First thoughts are I should have removed the bokeh ball by the steering wheel in the background (distracting), and perhaps not gone with quite so much contrast on the face?

kd

King Damager · 6 Feb 2013 at 16:39

Positioning wasn't really something I could control, more of a casual candid

But I understand your point on lighting and shadows.

kd

King Damager · 6 Feb 2013 at 17:42

D.P. said:
C&C on the person:
Looks really, really soft. Motion blue/hand shake looks to be the culprit. What Focal length and shutter speed were you using?

A general rule of thumb is you need a shutter speed 1 over the *effective* focal length. Effective meaning if you are using a crop sensor hen you need to take into account the crop factor.

Furthermore, this was rule of thumb worked well on film camera with a nominal resolution of around 20MP ISo200, modern DSLRs have much higher pixel densities so you will need to push to faster shutter speeds. It is also a rule of thumb, if you have shaky hands you will want even faster speeds. If you want to increases your probability of a sharp photos you will want things faster again.

So a 50mm lens on a 1.5x crop camera you will want to be looking that least 1/80 second shutter speed but I would aim at 1/125 if you are well composed, 1/160s if you are shaky.

EDIT: Just seen the EXIF, 75mm lens on a 6D I would have shot at 1/100th second, minimum. Likely you would have wanted a flash, or to use a faster lens.
Second EDIT: no doubt someone will come along saying they can shoot a 400mm lens at 5s hand held while sitting on a tank driving down a mountainside. Not everyone is a trained military sniper.

secondly, composition is not comfortable.

Why has no one told me this rule before! xD

Very useful for future reference though! As for flash, that's in the 'to buy' list

But yeah, AE, it does have that feature

kd

King Damager · 6 Feb 2013 at 17:52

Anabolic lighting, refers to the concept of lighting that emphasises shadows to make muscles look larger.

A very front spot light will flatten muscle and texture out. A shot of abs from above, would allow the muscle to cast a shadow on the top of the muscle below, making the indent look deeper.

I think that explains it.

Again, GTR, great tip, thanks.

I'll admit was slightly limited by the Candid, although the rule of thumb on shutter speed seems particularly useful.

kd

King Damager · 6 Feb 2013 at 18:37

An Exception said:
IS turns that rule on it's head, until subject movement becomes the limiting factor.
If you would have shot that on a lens without IS, you wouldn't have even posted it up.

True

But it'll be useful to know to work out how many stops over this I can get with is.

Once I've worked this out, I can go off the rule with adjustment

kd