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Chaosmonger Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #1 · C&C Please! - Noob learning to fly on "M" with a D90 I am trying to improve my skills at capturing images using only the manual setting. My beautiful niece is the only girl in my family so obiously she is one of my favorite subjects for practice. I like using my kids to practice as they never sit still or stay in one spot very long forcing me to quickly adapt aperature and shutter speeds to everchanging conditions. The only post processing I did was to crop out some of her shirt from the bottom (just too much blue was dominating). The camera is a Nikon D90 with the kit 18-105 DX 1:3.5-5.6G VR lens. I did have the flash on for some fill light. We were in the shadows of some trees. Feel free to take the gloves off. I'm here to learn and won't get my panties in a bunch. From technique to model, lighting....let me know what's good and bad if you would please Oh, and how do I find the exif data in the image? I wanted to put it in this post. Thanks in advance for taking time to look and edjumicate me Oct 22, 2012 at 03:59 AM

Jim Rickards Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #2 · C&C Please! - Noob learning to fly on "M" with a D90 Nice job on this. Good expression. I think you still have too much blue, so a further crop is what I suggest. Crop just below the hair. You could also try cropping a tad off the top. The less bright white background you have behind her, the better. The flash is a little strong or perhaps I'm just looking at the pin-point catchlights and reacting to that. You may want to use a modifier to give you larger catchlights and use off camera flash. Exif is intact. (f5.6, 1/160th, ISO 200, 105mm, flash fired) I use an exif reader to see it. Google "exif reader" and download a free program that will let you see exif of pictures of the pictures of others. For you own shots, your PP software should show you the settings you used. I don't use Nikon, but I expect they provide some software with the camera. Oct 22, 2012 at 05:06 AM

Steady Hand Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #3 · C&C Please! - Noob learning to fly on "M" with a D90 Jim Rickards wrote: Nice job on this. Good expression. I think you still have too much blue, so a further crop is what I suggest. Crop just below the hair. You could also try cropping a tad off the top. The less bright white background you have behind her, the better. The flash is a little strong or perhaps I'm just looking at the pin-point catchlights and reacting to that. You may want to use a modifier to give you larger catchlights and use off camera flash. Exif is intact. (f5.6, 1/160th, ISO 200, 105mm, flash fired) I use an exif reader to see it. Google "exif reader" and download a free program that will let you see exif of pictures of the pictures of others. For you own shots, your PP software should show you the settings you used. I don't use Nikon, but I expect they provide some software with the camera. +1 Good comments from Jim (as usual). ___________ The skin tone looks a little cool to me too...so make sure you use a calibrated monitor when you are editing your photos. Oct 22, 2012 at 03:35 PM

jefferies1 Offline • • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #4 · C&C Please! - Noob learning to fly on "M" with a D90 The idea of shooting outside is for natural light. You used way too much flash and went from filling with flash to only flash on the subject. In manual camera mode you can also set the flash to manual assuming it is a attached unit. Don't know about built in as I would not use it, either way if using in Auto flash even in manual camera mode dial down the flash unit to -2 or -3 and see what happens. In full manual flash you have to either take a couple sample shots to adjust or balance with a light meter. Sample shots are just as fast for me for balance between ambiant and flash allowing the ambiant to be the main light. Your shutter speed is also a major issue. You want the natural light to be the main light of subject. Your 160 sec speed makes the flash the main light and you cut out a lot of the natural. In ambiant light shooting the shutter speed is the main control of the light being used with F stop a close 2nd. With ambiant or continous light a slow shutter allows in more light,fast shutter reduces the ambiant light. With flash, high shutter speed does NOT reduce the flash in the photo, the F stop does. It is all a balance when mixing the two kinds of light. Try 1/60 or 1/80 then match your ISO and F stop, then fill in with as little flash as you can. Always allow some slight shadows to appear, again the key is SLIGHT then you will no longer have that flat look you do now.This is another plus for off camera flash and another reason to have very minimal fill which will stilll allow some shadows. Your WB is also looking on the Blue/cold side. I suggest doing a custom WB to get a better neutral color then adjust the RAW file in post if required. Oct 22, 2012 at 06:32 PM

Michaelparris Offline • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #5 · C&C Please! - Noob learning to fly on "M" with a D90 I think it is a bit too crowded and it needs to be pulled back to see some of the environment around the subject. Looks like you have some good BG bokeh that would have been pleasing to the photo. If this was on camera you might try rotating the head and bouncing the flash of a reflector because to me the catch lights are a little too direct. Oct 22, 2012 at 07:49 PM

Chaosmonger Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #6 · C&C Please! - Noob learning to fly on "M" with a D90 -Mr. Rickards: First off, thank you! I made the crop in PS. For no good reason I usually set the cropping tool to "photo ratio" on portrait style images to make printing it easy for non picture people (read my elderly in-laws ) I only have the built in flash as of yet. I'm still just happy I remembered to turn it on for fill flash. Obviously I need to learn how to use it better. I think I read in to D90 owners manual I can set the flash to "rear". My guess is this will tone it down a bit but I'll have to look it up. Steady Hand: Thank you also! Unfortunately I only have my laptop monitor at the moment. You are most correct though. Tilting the display forward or back even 1cm makes a different image. Jefferies1: Again, thank you! You just struck a chord with your statement "You want the natural light to be the main light of subject." In my own internal thought process I have been thinking about the aperature/depth of field I want first and setting the shutter speed to match using the internal light meter in the viewfinder display. If the shutter speed ends up being to slow to get a crisp image (chasing kids around) I just started popping up the flash. I remember the "Magic Lantern" tutorail DVD guy saying to keep the ISO set to 200 as you lose image quality by setting it any higher (more sensetive). From reading your C&C I think I need to understand the lighting I have available to me first and then set the camera to take advantage of it best using ALL available adjustments including raising the ISO to use less or no flash. You are the second person to mention my WB being cool. In police work that is called a clue! Mr. Parris: Thank to you also sir! I would have liked to have a little more of the trees in the background too. This was a sneak up snaphot of my neice and not a posed shot. Unfortunately any wider would have included my neighbors garage (a bit of it is in the shot on the right) and my ugly old pick up truck on the left. She is actually sitting on the tool box in the bed of it. Come to think of it, I bet I got a little extra from the flash bouncing off the rear window of the truck + direct flash. Hmmmmm.... Again, thanks to all!!! This is a great Forum and I appreciate everone taking the time to help me! Kindest regards, Oct 23, 2012 at 06:11 PM

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