I was recently at a family Christmas function and before hand, was asked to bring some gear to snap some Santa photos. Well one thing lead to another and next thing I knew, I was doing many family group portraits. Now I'm a true amateur. I've never done this for money and have never done an "on location" thing, with the exception of a friends house in which I had hours of prep and setup time. This time I had about 15 minutes from the time I dropped my bag to the time that Santa entered the room. I have a combination of some decent and some beginner gear. I have a 3 piece 250w strobe kit from Amazon that i decided to bring rather than speedlights simply because of power options due to the number of photos I'd be taking. I was using a 6D and started with an EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II and then switched to the kit 24-105mm L for the wider group shots. I used a tripod with a wired remote. I varied the settings a bit but generally they were f8 in Av mode. I put the ISO at about 400-640 to keep recharge time down a bit. I snapped A LOT of pics.... lol
For post-edit use LR5 and PS-CC. Once in LR I'd foolishly crop first (gotta remember to crop last) apply lens correction, export to PS and remove blemishes from the wall behind and zits from faces and whatnot, then apply a layer using the Imagenomic Portraiture plugin, then use a brush to sharpen up the eyes and hairline a bit, then back into LR to apply Perfectly Clear plugin for a bit of pop.
This is one example is took on a 10 second timer and am just looking for some tips and feedback. I'm really enjoyed doing this despite the pressure in the beginning. Everyone who got prints from this shoot was VERY happy with them. I'm just looking to get better.
Thoughts for things I think i've learned? Perhaps ease up on the Portraiture plugin and CROP LAST. lol (People wanted different sizes of prints and it was a pain in the ass!)
Thanks in advance.
Leon
For post-edit use LR5 and PS-CC. Once in LR I'd foolishly crop first (gotta remember to crop last) apply lens correction, export to PS and remove blemishes from the wall behind and zits from faces and whatnot, then apply a layer using the Imagenomic Portraiture plugin, then use a brush to sharpen up the eyes and hairline a bit, then back into LR to apply Perfectly Clear plugin for a bit of pop.
This is one example is took on a 10 second timer and am just looking for some tips and feedback. I'm really enjoyed doing this despite the pressure in the beginning. Everyone who got prints from this shoot was VERY happy with them. I'm just looking to get better.
Thoughts for things I think i've learned? Perhaps ease up on the Portraiture plugin and CROP LAST. lol (People wanted different sizes of prints and it was a pain in the ass!)
Thanks in advance.
Leon