Exercise 1 - Reshot

What: Following the same brief as before as it was still the same exercise.
Where: Inside the house, during the evening.
When: During the evening.
How: having learned that the quality of the lighting in the room was not suitable for what I required I added an extra lighting component to the setup by using an EX150 studio flash with a softbox mounted on the front of it.

This time instead of having the model sitting reading a book, we had a conversation as she was sitting on the chair and I shot the images when I thought it was appropriate. We had to sit for a while as she blinked a lot on the images whenever the flash fired and we had to change the power of the flash occasionally depending on how she was sitting.

I was much happier with the quality of the images this time around as the ISO was lowered and this allowed a less dusty image

Prime Lens 50mm

I started with the Prime Lens, working my way back across the room, composing as I went to obtain the correct positioning that I wanted. One of my fears was that, as I was going to be close up to her using the prime lens that I would have to find a position that meant I was not blocking the light but at the same time allowing her to light up by the flash.

I left the softbox in the same position and adjusted the head and flash levels as I went.

At first I had a few problems with the shutter speed as I was shooting at a speed slightly higher than the camera and flash synchronisation, so at first I was having the image cropped off by the shutter sync, again I had to adjust my positioning and the flash light levels down to a stop whereby I would achieve synchronisation without over exposing the image.

Close Up

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.7, speed 1/180 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



I was relatively happy with this shot, although the thin aperture means that the background tails off into black. However it gives great definition to the eyes and the tight close crop of her face leaves you with her eyes as the main point of focus.

After looking at the image on the screen, I decided that I would like to see a black and white version of the image. I found after a short bit of experimentation that I preferred a version with a High Contrast Red Filter as it did not distract from her face, other filters had a tendency to show up too much facial definition.




Head and Shoulders

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.7, speed 1/180 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



It took a bit of fiddling with the lights to increase the power of the flash without over exposing her face. After a few shots I found a setting that I liked and shot of a few images of her as we spoke.

I like the colour definition and again I kept the aperture at f1.7 to create the thin depth of field.

Three Quarter Length

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.7, speed 1/180 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



The light proved to be good at allowing her to be defined against the black and not have her head pop out of a black shape. Again I am pleased with the aperture which was focused on her eyes allowing the depth of field to isolate her from the background while still giving her shape and form.

Full Length

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.7, speed 1/180 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



I was very surprised to find that the colour was almost over saturated when I looked at this image on the screen. I dropped the saturation back to a negative level as I found that the colour was distracting and it was pulling away the eye. I am not sure about having the cat in the image, but at the time he would not leave the room.

Lessons Learned.

Using a greater amount of light allowed me to drop the ISO level down to the cameras minimum, this gave me time to compose as I did not have to worry about the model moving and creating blur. At times I did find that the images were over saturated, probably due to the amount of light.

After I had moved the camera back to its furthest away position for the prime lens, I swapped the lens on the camera for a telephoto lens.

Telephoto Lens

Close Up.

I looked over a couple of lenses before using the 70-300 as it had the best choice of aperture, some of the other lenses I have had limited apertures as I felt that they did not give me a shallow enough depth of field for what I wanted.

Nikon D80, focal length 240.0mm (35mm equivalent 360mm), aperture f5.5, speed 1/125 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 70-300mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



I was very surprised to see on the screen that the image was not too shallow, as at first I thought I would get the defined depth of field that I wanted. Then I remembered that the telephoto lens can flatten the depth of field due to its optics.

I almost find this image a little too dark, due to the framing of her hair in the image.

Head and Shoulders

Nikon D80, focal length 122.0mm (35mm equivalent 183mm), aperture f4.8, speed 1/125 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 70-300mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



Black and White Version



As I pulled the lens back to 122mm I was able to move the aperture to f4.8 without affecting the shutter speed. I carefully framed her head and shoulders into the frame, but I did not like the front on stance that she took. I had her turn her position back to the original position of having her right shoulder forward and turning her head towards the lens.

I again had to change the strength of the flash as it was causing the front of her forehead to be over exposed and very blown out white. After repositioning the head down slightly and tiliting it off to the left I found the light to be better.

I like the framing of her hand in this position as it leads the eye into the frame and from there the eye moves up her face and to her eyes.

Three Quarters

Nikon D80, focal length 70mm (35mm equivalent 360mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/125 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



I swapped the lens again as although both lenses had a 70mm position I wanted to flow down the focal length rather than have three images using the 70-300mm lens and one using the 18-70mm lens. The only real affect between the two lenses at the same focal length was a slight f-stop difference.

The shorter focal length lens was ideal for the three quarter and full length shots. Here I was able to frame her sitting, the model was a bit self conscious about her hands, so giving her a glass allowed her to have something to hold and feel comfortable with.

Full Length

Nikon D80, focal length 38mm (35mm equivalent 57mm), aperture f4.2, speed 1/125 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,EX150 Flash Head with Softbox



I think as this was the last shot, she had relaxed and was smiling as it was almost over.

The only real problem I have with this image is that again she is starting to be lost in the depth of a black shape which starts to merge with the shadows behind her.

Lessons Learned.

I did learn that there is quite a bit of difference in the final quality of the portrait which depends on the aperture of the lens I was surprised to find that the telephoto lenses allowed for almost the same amount of separation and depth of field as the prime lens which was something which I had no expected.

I was a lot happier this time doing the exercise as I found that I approached this exercise better prepared and although I was self critical that the quality of the images, I found less images to reject from the pile.

I was also happy that I had used both the prime and the telephoto lenses so that I could contrast and compare the two techniques and the images which resulted from them.

The image that I am most fond off, after a little retouching;

Exercise 1 - Failing at the First Fence

Exercise 1 – First Attempt

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take a set of portraits covering different views of a subject. They ran from full length of the person, Three quarter length, head and shoulders and tight in on the face.
Where: Inside the house, during the day evening using internal house lighting
When: During the evening.
How: We moved a table and a couple bits of furniture to create a area which had no distractions. We then put a chair in place and using the overhead lights took the sequence of photographs.

I wanted to use both a prime lens and telephoto as I knew that the each type of lens would bring its own qualities to the images. I started with a 50mm prime lens sitting on a tripod and before the shooting I worked out how far and close I had to move to obtain the required shots. I also worked out the minimum and maximum lengths I would need using two telephoto lenses so that I could work from approximately 18mms up to 300mm without moving the tripod.

This exercise went well on the basis that my inital ideas of using both prime and telephoto lenses created different qualities of image due to the mimumum aperture available to me on both lenses. What I had not anticipated was the quality of the light and that I had to end up shooting at the highest ISO that the camera could handle. This produced very grainey images which were okay for the full length and three quarter length photographs, but the full face and head and shoulders photographs looked dusty and the gain ended up with the model looking like she had dusted her face with power and flour.
The overhead lighting also resulted in the face of the model becoming dark around her eyes and cheeks. Even when she moved her head up the overhead lighting still produced too much shadow around her face and her eyes. I had tried using an on camera flash but the final images still were too dusty and I was not happy with the final results.

Full Length

Nikon D80, focal length 34.0mm (35mm equivalent 51mm), aperture f4.0, speed 1/10 second, ISO 3200, Tungsten white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, No flash.



While this is not too bad, I was not happy with the quality of the image, the feet being blurred and the face and feet being isolated from the rest of the model by a large shape of black and grey.

Full Length Version 2

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.7, speed 1/60 second, ISO 3200, Tungsten white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.



This is a better quality image as there is better depth of field created by the aperture and the quicker shutter speed, but again the head, arms and feet are isolated as they are buried in the black shape.

Three Quarter Length

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/60 second, ISO 3200, Tungsten white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.



While this is a clearer shot of the subject, she is still isolated from the rest of the frame by her mode of dress. The poor quality of the lighting shows here as it has cast her eyes into shade making the under area and top of her cheek as the focal point of the image.

Close-up

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/90 second, ISO 3200, Tungsten white balance, matrix metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.



Again here in the close-up, the overhead lighting has cast her eyes into shadow and it is making her appear as if he has large bags under her eyes. It also casts the corners of her mouth into shade and makes her chin look larger than it actually is. The tungsten light has also had the quality of making her skin has a slight blue cast which clashes with her natural colour.

Lessons Learned.

I really failed to prepare the area properly, nor did I analyse the quality of the light. I was hoping that the high ISO quality would be better than it was for portraiture. The overhead lighting was never going to be the best but I was not quite prepared for the shadows it created nor for the blue cast it created against the subjects natural colours.

I did learn that there is quite a bit of difference in the final quality of the portrait which depends on the aperture of the lens. In some cases the prime lens depth of field was almost too thing resulting in the subjects features being isolated from the rest of their face.

I was so unhappy with the way that I approached this exercise and I was very self critical that the quality of the images were so poor, that I sat down after looking over the images of the computer screen I decided to reshoot the exercise again.