2010 - Week 7, Sunflare

February 18, 2010 4:53, 4:56 pm
Feeding the Ducks - Summerwood
Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8 - shot in RAW
Manual, No Flash, ISO 160, f/3.2, SS 1/1250, SS 1/2000, center weighted metering

After reading the I ♥ Faces blog post from Rita over at Coffeeshop and having been wanting to try to get some sunflare photos, I thought our planned trip to feed the ducks would set me up for a good opportunity.





post-processing
adjusted WB & exposure in camera raw. In CS3, selectively editing the girls to lighten them a bit from their shadows and then followed Rita's steps to add lens flare and photo filter. It does give the photos a slightly dreamy look and I actually like the pink tint in the sky.

I have to admit that shooting lifestyle photography outdoors in full manual is difficult for me. Between subjects that will not hold still for two seconds to even let me check my exposure setting before they are moving again, causing me to move to keep them in the frame which changes the exposure. I switching to center-weighted metering because I wanted them to be better exposed but I wonder if pattern metering wouldn't have been better after all.

Still a little frustrated with focus. I am using back button focus and I am moving my focus point around and always have it on the face - using the eyes. I don't know why Alena's boots look more in focus than her face. Maybe I'll switch back to the regular shutter button and see if things improve. Even though I'm in AF-C mode I think the fact that they move SO much that even if I focus and keep the AF point on them which continually focuses I may still be clicking the shutter before it is really focused. Maybe I should turn the beep back on - I usually just based it on whether I can hear the lens moving or not.