Portrait night 21st, March 2008

[oakeycoke]

Hi,

One from last night.


Phil.

[sunsworth]

Interesting shot, but what happened to the left hand side (as we look at it) of her face and neck? Was there a yellow gell on the flash?

[oakeycoke]

Steve,

Well spotted, two studio flash, one reflected via a gold umbrella on the left and the other through a diffused white umbrella to the right, not that noticeable on the camera lcd or at the time for that matter. I could have cured it somewhat by raw processing with different white balance(twice) and then some layers/masks etc in photoshop, but this was just a quick edit. Now if i'd converted it to your infamous black/white would we see the difference? (only joking)

I could also have altered the lights at the time, but they were set up for use by the group. (excuses, excuses!)

However its a very good point and one for possible discussion when I talk about manufacturers flash in July as opposed to studio lights.(hmmm what have I let myself in for! bouncing flash of the adaps clubroom walls lol. )

Phil

[John]

Here's another shot from the shoot:

[sunsworth]

Phil, yes I prefer black and white - hope you don't mind this conversion. Let me know if you do and I'll delete the image...



I think one of the problems with the image is that it's using the Prophoto colour space. Most web browsers aren't colour space aware - Safari is the only one I'm aware of that is - so it's usually best to convert to sRGB before uploading. Looking at the portrait in Photoshop it looks a lot better than in Firefox.

I'm not a portrait shooter, but I'd also tried to do something about the twin lines on her nose - yes I know it's easy to say things like that after the event <grin>.

As so often it's the eyes that the viewer is drawn to and you've captured the sparkle of the model's personality very well.

[oakeycoke]

Steve,

The black/white conversion is fine, I'm more of a colour image person than black/white however it covers the white balance/gold reflector problem very well and if it was for a portfolio the black/white one would be the one to use. Having said that I think male models tend to look better in black/white but thats only my opinion.

The colour space, now thats made me thing because the camera is set to sRGB and photoshop likewise, though i do use the monitor calibration profile as well which is colorplus. Must keep an eye on the profiles.

I spotted the two lines on her nose and John's image has one also, I think thats down to a combination of the lights and make-up, its actually quite easy to eliminate with the spot healing, or healing brush tools in photoshop, or even some dodging but that tends to look a bit greyish. Suppose really i should have worked on that as I did lighten the eyes slightly and do a pre smart sharpen of them prior to an overall sharpening of the image, just a couple of minutes work really. I've read that pro models use make up that isn't overly flattering when viewed with the human eye, but under studio lights/flash it does not reflect the lights as much, so theres not as much post production work to do.

The web image is 280kb roughly and 8.32Mb as a raw, taken with the Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens at f/7.1, 1/160s an excellent lens. If you still have your 5D its a good one for those not so close street candid shots. I' m sure you are fibbing a bit when you say 'I'm not a portrait shooter', Wikipedia states 'Portrait photography (also known as portraiture) is the capture by means of photography of the likeness of a person or a small group of people, in which the face and its expression is predominant.' Your website proves you are an excellent portrait photographer.

Thanks for the feed back,

Phil

[Mike]

Most web browsers aren't colour space aware - Safari is the only one I'm aware of that is

Woot!

[sunsworth]

Phil, when I said that I'm not a portrait photographer I guess I meant posed shots under artificial light. I have no expertise of that kind of shot - though I have some thoughts about how the lighting would work best in very general terms.

In the case of street shots with longer lenses, I still have the Canon 5D (for the moment) and a 100mm f2 lens - not the macro - but in general I prefer 50mm or shorter for street photography, long lenses have too much of the 'sneaky shooter' for me - that's a personal opinion, feel free to disagree <grin>.