Portraitville

Been doing a lot of studio portraits lately. A few other things too. Here are some shots though! I'm adding the style of lighting for those interested.

1
Low Key, Split lighting, 11:1 ratio
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/...e86d2f301c.jpg

2
Medium Key, Paramount lighting, 1:1 Ratio
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2759/...f27a94ffdf.jpg

3
Medium Key, Paramount lighting, 1:1 Ratio
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/...5e6536129e.jpg

4 (Diptych photo; Both shots are straight from camera)
High Key, Loupe Lighting, 8:1 Ratio
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/...34123630c9.jpg

5
Medium Key, Loupe Lighting (Almost none), 1:1 Ratio
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2739/...98a3ee09f6.jpg

6 (One of my favorite natural light portraits)
Natural light
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/...a6fe76c2f9.jpg

Comments and criticism always appreciated!

Those are really nice, what kind of equipment do you use?
The lighting looks amazing on all of them, especially that first one. The only thing I have to say is that the medium key loupe photo looks a bit photoshop'd/unnatural.

Really? Those are mostly straight out of the camera, aside from some coloring. Haha
Actually, now that I think about it, that shot was overexposed about a full stop, so i brought the levels down. Otherwise, the same thing

I shoot the canon 50d. Most of these were with my 70-300 IS lens.
The medium shots at 1:1 were in my school's studio, with some equipment that I'm not really used to shooting.

All the rest are shot in my studio, against paper backdrops, with my alienbee 800 strobes and a canon 430 ex speedlite. Usually, I have a beauty dish on my key light, and a softbox for fill. Then my 430 as a background lights.

For the high key lighting, I put both my ab800's as background lights, and lit my subject with my 430 ex through an umbrella, and a reflector camera left.

Those are some pretty nice shots for an untouched photo, pretty dynamic lighting except for the one at school. You could make some pretty big money selling your photo's to stock photo sites like istockphoto.com

I see you took the dSLR route. I'm thinking of trying my hand in photography pretty soon, mostly to get render shots for my 3d models and graphic design. You're pretty lucky to have a studio at school(and at home), the most mine offers is a development room for manual exposures and such :(

Also: Your equipment sounds pretty expensive, got any cheap (dSLR) recommendations for a beginner?

My advice is to go Sony. Sony is all done in-house, meaning no markups like canon or nikon. They own Minolta, who invented the auto-focus, and they're partnered with Zeiss, arguably one of the best optics companies around.

Also, the guy selling the camera makes way more commission than off canon or nikon =P

But seriously, Sony offers more for less. You just dont get any video, but thats sorta not necessary on an slr.

As for luck, it's no luck haha. All my money goes straight into photo. And Istockphoto has its benefits and its drawbacks. Good money for those who sell a lot, but easy to get taken advantage of. I work for a company that specializes in overhead light panels, and they sell transparancies of prints they buy on istockphoto. They buy it at dirt cheap prices, then pay me to enlarge the photos haha

WHile i am biased i disagree with necro. YOu could probabaly get a canon Rebel XT usedfor 150$ right now. But whatever you get i'm sure you'll be pleased, dslr's are such a step up from point and shoots it helps so much.

Necro, i like these shots. Good examples of the lighting you've seemed t get down pat.
Very nice looking shots.

I'm not really a fan of the last one tbh. Its tough to tell whats going on. Hair, skin, no eyes, a very small nose and DOF (which is good) but its really a weird angle and just feels a bit off for this.
Also i think your white balance is slightly too red for him, or you underexposed a bit. HIs face his too dark of red.

NIce shots though, very cool!! Keep it up dude.

Sony is not a camera make, no matter if they are paired with Zeiss (notice that the lenses worth having are stupidly expensive?), or if they formed out of KonicaMinolta, cause its still just Sony, their imaging algorithms are crap compared to other companies, and theyre just not worth it. Just to correct you, Leica patented the first auto focus system, km were just the first to put it in a point and shoot, Pentax were the first to put it in an SLR.

If you want a cheap dslr, go for a used Canon like Papa said, theyre cheap and relatively good. The best new entry level camera is the Pentax K-x (IQ is better than the Canon 50D and [arguably] Nikon D300), but that isnt gonna be as cheap as a used cam. Although Nikon are good, their entry level cameras don't have built in motors so you have to buy lenses with autofocus in, pushing the price up.


Oh and awesome portraits Necro, #2 is excellent. I wish I understood lighting and could afford it sometimes - where did you learn? I gotta agree with you about Istockphoto - did you see the article about the TIME cover, where they paid £30 for a istockphoto photo, when they usually pay £3000 comissioned, or £1500 stock (AP, Getty etc). Its complete bullshit.

Eh, Im inclined to disagree still about sony. I've shot with the alphas and theyve made some incredibly sharp images. Also their image stabilization is in-camera like olympus, which is awesome. Or the in camera hdr? And as for the zeiss lenses, worth every penny. the 135 1.8 makes nikons legendary 105mm look like crap.

For the record, their imaging is also on par again with the nikon in virtually every sense (excluding their RAW format, which has been known to create some minor jpeg artifacting when rendered over). Honestly, I don't understand all the bias against Sony. I think it's excellent for the money. 450 for a better camera than the original rebel series? Or if you look at their A550 its 6 fps, 14mp, live view, in camera IS, and with a lens is only 800. Ridiculous! But hey, to each their own.

Thanks guys for all the comments.

Rob: Trial and error. Lots of it. Also, youd be surprised what you can do with an on-camera flash and a fill card. Just experiment. And I did see that time article. So ridic

The ZA135 is very similar in quality to the Nikkor 135, and for barely any difference in aperture (1.8 vs 2.0), except the Nikkor is £600 cheaper, and 200g lighter - I know which I'd rather have.. all i'm saying.

So I like could barely understand the language in this thread lolololol but thopse shtos looks real nice! I like the lighting in them, well, not the 2nd last one.

I can't give a good opinion though. I know shit about photography.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Takken

So I like could barely understand the language in this thread lolololol but thopse shtos looks real nice! I like the lighting in them, well, not the 2nd last one.

I can't give a good opinion though. I know shit about photography.

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Anyone can give a good opinion, its whats pleasing to the eye that counts, not technicality

Thats the problem with so many photographers, worrying about technicality rather than overall aesthetic look, following the rule of thirds, making sure everything is exposed correctly, etc. [not targetting anyone by the way, just a view of mine]

Rob, I feel like you and I could talk about photo nonstop haha

I see your opinions and mine as simultaneously the same and opposite. For example, I go to a few other sites like fringe, and deltavisions, and all the people who post photography there have NO IDEA about composition or making a decent quality image. They have killer creativity, because they mostly do graphic design, but then when they try to push it over to a photograph, the quality is just terrible because they are so wrapped up in the concept. It's like anything else where you need to strike a balance I suppose.

I admire people who can take portraits like you, simply because I don't understand how to do them, and I admire landscape photographers who push themselves to the limit to get photos that they want (7 day hikes etc), but I don't get anything from seeing their work. What I don't admire is what you stated, people who come up with little concepts [for example, i visited that deltavision forum you mentioned] like one red monopoly hotel in rows of green monopoly houses - completely cliché ideas that have been done before that don't portray anything major - they need to achieve a subtlty that makes the viewer think about the photograph, and feel something when they see it. The photography that I actually like is fine art photography, stuff you see in galleries. Im an artist, not a photographer, but i use photography as a medium, theres a big difference. To name a few photographers, jeff wall, todd hido, robert adams, leigh perry, michael kenna [though i cant stand seeing ripoffs of his style] etc

Agreed so much. Photography is like any other art medium, just like you said. They're all tools to portray a vision. Unfortunately, when you get paid for your work, you don't get to be as creative as you want =/

About half of my work is contracted, so I usually have to deliver results people want for sending out to families, etc. I would love to get into fine art stuff some more.

You have aim or msn dude?

yeah ill pm you my msn