July 23, 2010 4:24 & 4:29 pm
Nikon D90, 50mm
Manual, No Flash, ISO 200, f/2.2, SS 1/60 & 1/40
RAW, Spot Metering, AF-S, WB in Auto
Now that Alena has glasses I have the challenge of finding light sources that give beautiful catchlights and don't cause horrible glasses glare. I have not been very successful in getting one without the other so far so this is the challenge I gave myself this week.
It was definitely tricky, I'd have the composition pretty much the way I wanted it (except I kept chopping limbs because I couldn't back up anymore) and the window reflection would be cutting through the middle of her glasses. I shifted myself, the camera, the shutters (which is why the shutter speed for her photo is 2/3 stops slower, I closed off the light adjusting the shutters - which also caused the heavier shadows on her left), before finally finding a spot that only had a little glare on her right lens.
For Iva I was just concerned about getting nice catchlights. I love looking at the catchlights in professional photos so I can determine the light source. Catchlights definitely tell a little story about the photo.
post-processing
There wasn't anything that needed to be corrected on these, so they were just converted from RAW to JPEGs. I'm still fiddling around with my trial version of Lightroom, so far I find it more frustrating than useful, but I did figure out where to change my settings from ProPhoto to sRGB and 16 bit to 8 bit - two things that threw me for a loop last week.
The lighting on this is beautiful. You did a great job. I have the same camera and lens you have so I'm trying to make my pics look half as good as yours! How do you get such a sharp focus? That is one of my main problems, finding how to properly focus.
ReplyDeletePerfection. What's your sharpening method? And as soon as I stop typing I'm going to do put my 50mm back on.
ReplyDeleteyou did a fantastic job, sarah!!!! beautiful catchlights and the glasses look awesome! LOVE THEM!! :)
ReplyDeleteLadies - so nice to read your comments. I was thinking these were a bit so-so. I keep reading to have the subjects at 45 deg to the light source and we were directly opposite, so maybe next week I'll try again and rotate them a bit.
ReplyDeleteAs for sharpness...I don't think it's that great. I was using AF-S and then having to move the focus point off the eye to help the composition and I don't think I nailed the focus - should have probably bumped up the ISO and closed down the aperture to 3.2. If you are on CM, look at this post http://www.clickinmoms.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1045103&postcount=13 - her focus makes me shiver.
In PP, I started off with some added sharpening to the eyes (high pass sharpen), but then went back & took it off after I did my normal size & sharpen for web cause the eyes looked all alien. For printing I will have to do a bit of eye sharpening, I'm still struggling on how to sharpen for print.
Gorgeous, Sarah. Just plain gorgeous. Mike loves Lightroom. Those catchlights are amazing.
ReplyDelete