Maternity shoot just after sunrise.. Feedback?

[akshatp]

Did a morning shoot with the wife in Puerto Rico last week.. Personally think the shots came out too "soft" but looking for other peoples opinions.

These are straight off the cam, no PP yet... Just uploaded a few to get some initial feedback and pointers on what to adjust in LR before I go through and PP the whole set.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/akshatp/photo.PNG
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/akshatp/photo1.PNG
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/akshatp/photo2.PNG

They were shot with a Canon Xsi and 28-135mm USM lens and 50mm (1.8)

 

[elitejp]

Dont worry about it looking soft. Generally I think most pics look a little soft when looking at it 100% otherwise they look fine to me at this size.

I always like playing with contrast and saturation to try to make the colors pop a little more. If your using Photoshop you can just use vibrance. With females i also like tying to brighten the face up a little to get rid of any shaows. After that just ad a little blur or softening to the face and I think you would be about finished.

 

[GoSharks]

You have some serious focus problems...

Composition wise, the cut off foot in the third image is pretty distracting to me.

 

[Throckmorton]

Those pictures are out of focus but I can't tell what you were focusing on.

 

[corkyg]

Agree with Throckmorton. Perhaps you were shooting in the wrong mode?

 

[akshatp]

Yea they do seem to be out of focus. I thought they were just "soft"

I used AF with the focus points set to "all"

I was shooting in AV mode with the lowest f-stop (5.6) I could use.

 

[randomrogue]

All of them are out of focus. Try, try again. Use single point and focus on whatever part of her body you want in focus and then set the aperture for the appropriate depth of field.

 

[corkyg]

Use P mode - you have better focus control as does the camera. Since they were all uniformly out of focus to the same degree, the mode came to mind.

 

[xj0hnx]

Use P mode - you have better focus control as does the camera. Since they were all uniformly out of focus to the same degree, the mode came to mind.

How exactly is Program Mode going to give you better focus control?

 

[corkyg]

Try it and see. It does on all my cameras. It lets you roll the exposure wile focusing, and you can adjust DOF on the fly. Come to think of it, I almost never use anything else.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

How exactly is Program Mode going to give you better focus control?

Generally, it will fight pretty hard to keep a middle-of-the-road depth of field. They seem to be pretty intelligent about giving you a good workable DoF, while still keeping the shutter speeds adequate.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Did a morning shoot with the wife in Puerto Rico last week.. Personally think the shots came out too "soft" but looking for other peoples opinions.

These are straight off the cam, no PP yet... Just uploaded a few to get some initial feedback and pointers on what to adjust in LR before I go through and PP the whole set.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/akshatp/photo.PNG
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/akshatp/photo1.PNG
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/akshatp/photo2.PNG

They were shot with a Canon Xsi and 28-135mm USM lens and 50mm (1.8)

I have some feedback for you. Please don't take it as insulting, just constructive criticism and some ideas.

1) They are soft, probably too soft to use. They are a weird kind of soft, though. It really doesn't look like out of focus problems to my eye, it looks like.. maybe a big smudge on the lens, or a broken lens? The reason is that things within the same plane seem to have different levels of clarity. You need to do some experimentation with focus. That kind of out of focus should even be visible on the back of the camera. You should really check for that before you come home so you can figure out how to fix it. Always zoom in on a subject's face on the camera while you are still at the shoot to check focus next time so you don't have to go do it again.

2) You waited too long after sunrise. The light has the quality of full daylight, which is to say, harsh and unflattering. The value of sunrise or sunset is when the light starts to soften and change colors. What you have is definitely better than noontime sun, though!

3) Think about angles. I'm a big fan of varying the backgrounds and composition by changing the altitude of your photo. I think it's a bit unflattering to always be shooting slightly downwards toward your subject, which is what happens when you do full-body shots from eye-level while standing upright. If you can figure out how to shoot from chest-level, many people find the angles much more appealing, unless you're going for a specific pose, or a specific background element that requires you to be up high. This is most apparent in your shot with the waves in the background. This is a subjective thing and some people might disagree with me, so take it with some salt.

4) If you can't shoot when sunrise is still colorful and gently filtered, try using a flash. It will cut a lot of the harshness of the light and give more vibrant and warmer colors on your subject.

Good luck!