Post your best portraits(street, studio, candid etc...).

[Valvebounce]

Hi hne.
Thank you for taking the time to offer guidance, I think I understand your directions, I will give it a try and see if I get it right.
I’m sure you are correct about it making a stronger portrait, problem is I don’t understand the ”why” it will make it stronger, I guess I might recognise why once I do it, and I guess if I don’t get it then I’m never really going to get portraiture!

Cheers, Graham.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Martti.
A couple of nice shots, I like the shot with the “directors frame” it adds to the conversation between subject and photographer!

Cheers, Graham.

 

[martti]

@valvebounce
Thanks, Graham.
I was surprised by the ease the Chinese people, old and young, get into contact with foreigners.
No fuss, whatsoever, about cameras or pictures taken. Of course, it could be a polite "no", the choice remains theirs. I will probably go back there. One of the best tourist experiences I have ever had, Guangzhou.

 

[martti]

Re: Post your best portrait- Mada

Another bought smile from Madagascar.
A bit too much Perfectly Clear on this version.

 

[martti]

And yet another one. They do not mind having their pcture taken but to get a smile you need to give a coin or a piece of candy.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi hne.
Hopefully one of these two versions is what you meant.
I tried one cutting his right shoulder in half and I am not sure if it leaves enough room below his face? So I did it again through his left shoulder! (It came down to not being sure if you meant his right or on screen right!)
Please could you let me know if either of these are what you meant, personally I think the second version is the one that works best and I also think your suggestion worked, either of the new versions seem to have more power to them.

SE0A6168_DxO_3_raw by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

SE0A6168_DxO_2_raw by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

Cheers, Graham.

 

[privatebydesign]

Personally, and I admit my opinion is worth nothing, the portrait falls in an uncomfortable gap between environmental portrait and personal study.

It isn't wide enough to be an environmental image, something like him leaning on an interesting car or plane, so there is little context to what background we can see. On the other hand it isn't close or intimate enough to be a portrait of the person, and he is hiding behind those glasses anyway.

For the environmental type image I'd use something in the 24-35mm focal range and stand back, for the personal study type image I'd use the 100 macro or the 70-200 f2.8 or anything 85mm and over, and crop in much closer.

 

[stevelee]

I've been taking pictures of the crocuses in front of my house using the 100mm macro lens. I went out this afternoon to take shots of what will likely be the last blooms. I also got a nice shot of the hyacinths coming up.

My next door neighbor was out washing her car, and I talked with her a bit. It turns out she had taken a photography course in college, and she was asking me questions about the camera and the lens. She knew what a macro lens is. I told her that it also is a sharp small telephoto lens and is in the range to make good portraits. I took a nice picture of her to illustrate, but I like better the shot with her holding one of her cats:

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi PBD.
Thanks for your tuppence, I save them up and when all are added together the value of the advice increases almost exponentially!
I don’t think he was hiding behind the glasses, so much as protecting his eyesight! I’m sure you are aware that Goodwood motor circuit is on an airfield and the wind whistles accross there plus the sun was low and for a change bright enough to hurt and he is to a great extent facing in to it. 8) That said I accept the point and if possible I prefer shots without sun glasses.

Cheers, Graham.

Personally, and I admit my opinion is worth nothing, the portrait falls in an uncomfortable gap between environmental portrait and personal study.

It isn't wide enough to be an environmental image, something like him leaning on an interesting car or plane, so there is little context to what background we can see. On the other hand it isn't close or intimate enough to be a portrait of the person, and he is hiding behind those glasses anyway.

For the environmental type image I'd use something in the 24-35mm focal range and stand back, for the personal study type image I'd use the 100 macro or the 70-200 f2.8 or anything 85mm and over, and crop in much closer.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Steve.
It is a nice shot of the cat, but the cat as a subject is fugly scary!

Cheers, Graham.

I've been taking pictures of the crocuses in front of my house using the 100mm macro lens. I went out this afternoon to take shots of what will likely be the last blooms. I also got a nice shot of the hyacinths coming up.

My next door neighbor was out washing her car, and I talked with her a bit. It turns out she had taken a photography course in college, and she was asking me questions about the camera and the lens. She knew what a macro lens is. I told her that it also is a sharp small telephoto lens and is in the range to make good portraits. I took a nice picture of her to illustrate, but I like better the shot with her holding one of her cats:

 

[privatebydesign]

I used to ride my bike from Bognor to Goodwood in the late '70's early '80's to take pictures of the F1 teams in testing, you could just walk around in those days!

Used to know John Watson and Derek Bell the two famous drivers from Pagham, which is the posh part of Bognor I was watching David Purley in his Pitts Special off Bognor beach when he crashed too

I know Goodwood, and West Sussex very well

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi PBD.
I have one like that, I used to regularly ride my (push) bike to the shed where they were building Thrust 2 and chat with the crew, I learned so much about the car from those guys, it was an open area by Wootton Creek at Fishbourne by the ferry terminal. They built it with the doors open a lot of the time, now there is nothing interesting happening there but the place has fences and gates and signs warning you away! :

Cheers, Graham.

I used to ride my bike from Bognor to Goodwood in the late '70's early '80's to take pictures of the F1 teams in testing, you could just walk around in those days!

Used to know John Watson and Derek Bell the two famous drivers from Pagham, which is the posh part of Bognor I was watching David Purley in his Pitts Special off Bognor beach when he crashed too

I know Goodwood, and West Sussex very well

 

[stevelee]

Hi Steve.
It is a nice shot of the cat, but the cat as a subject is fugly scary!

Cheers, Graham.

Ricky is actually a nice cat. So is his brother Bobby. (I didn't ask whether they were named for the Will Ferrell character.) I posted this picture to our neighborhood group on Facebook, and Jennifer liked it and said Ricky is talking to me. In person he didn't seem about to attack, even if the picture looks like it.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Steve.
As a cat person I’m sure he is really nice, you just can’t tell that from your shot!
By the way, do you know the breed, I’m sure with such a distinctive appearance he is not just an ordinary moggy?
My apologies if it seemed I was being down on the shot, not my intention, ever.

Cheers, Graham.

Hi Steve.
It is a nice shot of the cat, but the cat as a subject is fugly scary!

Cheers, Graham.

Ricky is actually a nice cat. So is his brother Bobby. (I didn't ask whether they were named for the Will Ferrell character.) I posted this picture to our neighborhood group on Facebook, and Jennifer liked it and said Ricky is talking to me. In person he didn't seem about to attack, even if the picture looks like it.

 

[martti]

Re: Post your best creole belle

She is a real sweetie, kind and gentle...

 

[stevelee]

Hi Steve.
As a cat person I’m sure he is really nice, you just can’t tell that from your shot!
By the way, do you know the breed, I’m sure with such a distinctive appearance he is not just an ordinary moggy?
My apologies if it seemed I was being down on the shot, not my intention, ever.

Cheers, Graham.

No, I didn't take it that way at all. I was just clarifying the difference between how the cat came off in real life vs. how he does in the picture. And that is an interesting thing about photography in that the shot shows what the cat looked like during just one particular 1/320 sec.

(In looking up that info, I also noticed that the 6D2 was shooting at ISO 100. You are all now prompted to gag and go on and on about the terrible DR in the picture.)

An older lady out for a walk started singing the "Siamese Cat Song" when she came up, but I don't think that's the breed. I'll ask Jennifer next time I see her out. Their hair is too short for my taste, but they are nice cats.

 

[martti]

That cat is a Devon Rex.
Google it up.
To my taste the PP is oversharpened and there is too much magenta in the color mix.
But I am old and getting softer these days.

 

[stevelee]

That cat is a Devon Rex.
Google it up.
To my taste the PP is oversharpened and there is too much magenta in the color mix.
But I am old and getting softer these days.

Interesting about the magenta. In real life Jennifer's face looked more so from sunburn. I may even have dialed it back a bit on her face in ACR.

As shown here, the whiskers definitely look oversharpened. I need to look to see if there are guidelines and suggestions for posting pictures here. I have a PS Action for downsampling for posting on the web, and it has some sharpening built in, and will not be optimal in all cases. For web pages I usually limit the long dimension to 1000 or 1200 pixels. Then when they post here, they show up very large, so sharpening and artifacts are blown up. The original is of course 6240 x 4160 pixels. Then I cropped a bit off the sides and reduced to make the 1200 x 1027 JPEG seen blown up here. The downsampled version is posted at http://www.stevelee.name/images/IMG_0529. Even at that size the whiskers look oversharpened, but nothing else does to me.

 

[Sporgon]

As shown here, the whiskers definitely look oversharpened. I need to look to see if there are guidelines and suggestions for posting pictures here. I have a PS Action for downsampling for posting on the web, and it has some sharpening built in, and will not be optimal in all cases. For web pages I usually limit the long dimension to 1000 or 1200 pixels. Then when they post here, they show up very large, so sharpening and artifacts are blown up. The original is of course 6240 x 4160 pixels. Then I cropped a bit off the sides and reduced to make the 1200 x 1027 JPEG seen blown up here.

IMO so many images are spoilt by over zealous sharpening, and it's a problem that seems to be getting worse with the more recent cameras that have such a large native output size.

Really sharpening is best left until applied to the required output size. Personally I don't applied any sharpening to my images. I only apply, if at all, when the image is used. In fact now with the 5DS I have to actually apply blur to the images when they are being shown at a small output size. This is one of the reasons, for right or wrong, i chose the 5DS over the 5DSR.

This makes if difficult if you don't know the output size that your image is going to be used at. One of the ways to help here is perform your desired ( small hopefully !) sharpening by converting the image to LAB colour and sharpen in the Lightness channel. When downscaled the artefacts from sharpening are somewhat reduced.

 

[stevelee]

This makes if difficult if you don't know the output size that your image is going to be used at. One of the ways to help here is perform your desired ( small hopefully !) sharpening by converting the image to LAB colour and sharpen in the Lightness channel. When downscaled the artefacts from sharpening are somewhat reduced.

And my point is that the JPEGs I post are sharpened to look good to me at their output size. And then when I post here, they are shown at much larger sizes. If I knew how to post right-sized files for here, the problem wouldn't come up, or at least we could discuss, and maybe disagree about, the sharpening. Just as you say the downsampling reduces the artifacts, so blowing them up here makes them more noticeable. Already sharp white cat whiskers may be a worst case scenario.

I keep my RAW files at full size and don't do any sharpening on them. ACR will do a default "25" sharpening when you open them, but that doesn't affect the actual file, just the XMP, so even that could be dialed back. If I'm going to print, I'll use a different sharpening routine, usually one based on Bruce Fraser's methods. And of course resolution and output size will guide that, just as it does on my JPEGs.