I have a few comments and questions, but there's too much for me to study and try to analyze and learn from here to do in one sitting. Hugely interesting thread, lots of variety in technique, steller results achieved. Bookmarked for later study and review... wow.
WoW!!!! I like. Have been wanting to give Ryan's technique a try for some time. I think you just reignited that interest. Really strong work! Digging the IR too!
Thanks folks. One could argue the subject makes the photos- but I'm doing another shoot on Monday practicing these same techniques with a guy. We'll see how much response that gets
@BHorst- read earlier posts in the thread and/or search google for the (Ryan) Brenzier method or bokeh panorama
MSC- some of us don't have allergies, although it seems it's a smaller segment of the population as the years pass. Lilacs in particular are rather benign from an allergy perspective.
Richard- I've tried PTGui before, but I like the controls of Hugin better-- plus, Hugin is 100% free Hugin also lets me load all the images at once.
They look great! Any client would be happy with those results, I'm pretty sure you went above and beyond what most people expect, want or even hope for. All best and the light looks great! Way to ballance everything nicely on the strobe side of things.
nice Andrew, lots of neat stuff here, 1-3 lighting is very nice, 4 shot is nice, post processing is not for me, the tree shots are the weakest for me, mostly overwhelmed by the tree..the bokeh stuff is mind-blowing, cool stuff man.
On balance great set of images and use of light to its best advantage. Here are my thoughts more or less frame by frame...
Jim
1-2: Great exposure but difference in WB makes the strobe's presence known. Easy to fix in post by slightly warming her.
3: Slight overexposure from strobe accentuates WB difference and makes it look unnatural.
4: Your shots are so classic, why go to Mars with processing...that is generally the refuge of those who can't get the shot they wanted...you can/do.
5: Nice comp with her, but hot spots on left post just above hand and sun on far right compete for eye's attention. Darken those and/or crop to pano, losing right post and should improve.
6: Centered comp of her and awkward neck don't work for me. Compare to 7,8 which had far better comp only by shifting a few degrees.
7-8 see 6
9-11: great DOF and WB perfect...compare to first few shots...this is where you would move her to. Nose and eyes in 10 lose the chemistry and hot spot on shoulder pulls the eye. comp on 9 is excellent.
12: love it. leftmost eye went a little dark, might consider expanding catchlight in post
13: nice pp, nothing over the top, differential WB works very well here. her looking out of frame on left side would be less compelling than dead at camera with a sultry gaze...of course, that would have melted lens...looking right would have been another alternative
14: stellar as is but do you have one of these with a more sultry look? with everything else so geometric, a wry smile or more provacative look in eyes would have been riveting
15: Sometimes more is just more. Blur along bottom and hypersharp grass right of bench drag eye completely away from subject. Similar approach but with only the center third of the frames (i.e., crop pano through center) or at least dropping bottom 1/4 of frame would help a lot. Alternatively, keeping all or most (left to right) of bench and culling a vertical pano wuld be another good option. The totally OOF foreground jumping to sharper just does not come off as a natural look and makes the shot more about the effect and not the subject or scene.
16-17: IR + people is usually best in BW or shifted to blue-gold pallette. For either, need to do more aggressive sharpening of details (eyes, hair) to help subject compete with edges of plants and textures. Manually pulling eyes from black in post makes subjects look less alien.
18: Here your stitch worked very well. Excellent choice of crop and WB.
19: Stitch is also very good here and generally accentuates subject and scene. Except for too much detail on branch along left edge competing with subject too successfully, this works well as cropped. Blurring that branch would nail it. 3D look of subject here and golden rim from sun make the shot. You could get a similar pop of the subject with different optics. Zeiss ZE line 21, 28, and 35mm lenses perform well for that and would approach effective FOV here.
20: a and b are glorious...amazing expressions and great rimming with sun. c is great idea but wish even the hair was OOF...easy to fix.
21: pretty and well executed concept shot, but your single frame posted in explanation is far more compelling than the sum of the parts. In the composite, the building on left might be better further blurred.
All superb varied techniques. Great examples. The 200 F2 does it like nothing else. The IR has a mystery that is intriguing. Kindly tell us how was the IR was accomplished. Thanks.
Great work! The strobe shots are a little flat for me, I'd put the strobe a bit more at an angle to create some shadows. Natural light...boom! Grain...pow! IR...me likey! Brenizers...15 and 21 work for me, but the others needed better bkgs to really hit me over the head, as it is, they look a bit tilty-shifty, which doesn't grab me. Again, very nicely done!
Thanks again for your comments, and esp. for your detailed critique Grenache. 12- catchlights is the sky- that was au naturel lighting. Not sure why enhancing it would benefit. 13- that shot is actually a frame from the pano. She was, per my instruction, sitting there trying not to move. 21- I was practicing the technical technique more than trying to make a pretty or compelling photo (that is, I had her do a basic pose with little thought, because I was practicing a technical technique more than trying to make art). That could be extended to the shoot as a whole.. basic posing etc. but my focus was on techniques, lighting, and to lesser extent, compositions.
Ravitej wrote:
All superb varied techniques. Great examples. The 200 F2 does it like nothing else. The IR has a mystery that is intriguing. Kindly tell us how was the IR was accomplished. Thanks.
The IR was shot with a LifePixel modified Canon 40D. I pointed the lens and pressed the shutter Then tweak it in Photoshop (mostly levels/white balance). Sorry not trying to sound smarmy, but I didn't do anything special other than use an IR-modified camera.
Expanding catchlight suggestion was only meant for the eye camera left that has gone so dark either in the original exposure or conversion. Not trying to suggest a crazy expansion, just a nudge to give that eye more visual draw. It is a stellar shot any way you slice it.
I like the close-up portraits. Maybe I'm in the minority, and maybe I may be accused of fakery but I think a little Photoshop treatment of her skin tones to smoothen out the imperfections of her skin could help give some glamor to an otherwise lovely looking model.
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