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A number of things struck me immediately I saw this. Firstly your focus is on the lady's shirt rendering her face, hands and bangles out of focus. Having the hand there has removed her eyes from your portrait, which is a shame because the eyes always 'have it' as they say. I cannot imagine a portrait without eyes. Using your maximum aperture has not helped you one little bit here, you could ahve stopped down to f4 or f5.6 and still had an out of focus background and one without the shadows of the people behind you entering the frame. The stripe shadow across her right shoulder also intrudes and would be better not there.
It might have been better for a number of reasons to take the subject 'back-lit' here. You could have had your model's eyes on show without that blurry arm and hand in the way and there would not be any intrusive shadows there. All you would need would be a degree of fill-in-flash to lighten the facial shadows, not too much mind you, but I do feel that a balanced flash shot, with the rim lighting provided by the sun would have been nice to see.
A lot of your shots on your PF appear to have been taken at full aperture, but for best efficiency it is always best to stop down one, if not two stops in this case it is necessary in order to get the DoF that is needed.
Frank
It might have been better for a number of reasons to take the subject 'back-lit' here. You could have had your model's eyes on show without that blurry arm and hand in the way and there would not be any intrusive shadows there. All you would need would be a degree of fill-in-flash to lighten the facial shadows, not too much mind you, but I do feel that a balanced flash shot, with the rim lighting provided by the sun would have been nice to see.
A lot of your shots on your PF appear to have been taken at full aperture, but for best efficiency it is always best to stop down one, if not two stops in this case it is necessary in order to get the DoF that is needed.
Frank
Its a good image thats simply underexposed by at least one full stop. The background, and likely some reflected light is causing the metering to underexpose. So a + exposure compensation would have helped you a lot.
Its always best not to shoot people looking into the Sun for this reason here, and also they they will squint their eyes which looks odd. She clearly wanted to see you, so shaded her eyes. And as Frank mentioned, portraits dont work without eyes.
I have uploaded a mod with this done; Ive also used the shadow tool to brighten the shaded area on her eyes, and enhanced an existing small, but dark catch light. Cropped a little space from the right to move her off centre.
Hope this is helpful, and the mod looks ok,
Regards
Willie
Its always best not to shoot people looking into the Sun for this reason here, and also they they will squint their eyes which looks odd. She clearly wanted to see you, so shaded her eyes. And as Frank mentioned, portraits dont work without eyes.
I have uploaded a mod with this done; Ive also used the shadow tool to brighten the shaded area on her eyes, and enhanced an existing small, but dark catch light. Cropped a little space from the right to move her off centre.
Hope this is helpful, and the mod looks ok,
Regards
Willie
There used to be an adage years ago, about shooting portraits with the sun over your shoulder. All this does is give squints and horrible panda eye shadows. Better to move round a few degrees (here I suggest round to the right about 30 degrees) so she's not squinting into a low sun. Focus would be ok if you could see the eyes, as they are about on the same plane as the collar, but they are hidden which robs the image of personality.
Also, you could have crouched down so she didn't have to look into the sun, and ideally here a small blip of fill-flash.
In summary, I would move round to the right and use a bit of flash. The aperture is fine but you could get away with a smaller aperture, say f/4-f/5.6 and an extra stop of light for the underexposure, gives you around 1/250 at f/5.6 with a bit of underexposed flash as a fill in.
Potentially a great opportunity for a portrait, National Geographic stylee.
Nick
Also, you could have crouched down so she didn't have to look into the sun, and ideally here a small blip of fill-flash.
In summary, I would move round to the right and use a bit of flash. The aperture is fine but you could get away with a smaller aperture, say f/4-f/5.6 and an extra stop of light for the underexposure, gives you around 1/250 at f/5.6 with a bit of underexposed flash as a fill in.
Potentially a great opportunity for a portrait, National Geographic stylee.
Nick
Great opportunity missed I fear. Under exposed by about a full stop, possibly more. The hand does nothing for the composition and I wonder why you used such a wide aperture. The plane of focus is just too tight. You could have gone to f4 or 5.6 and still had a soft background.
Paul
Paul
Actually this is the first time i am doing portrait photography & i don't have so much idea regarding DOF & aperture effect , thnx 4 ur valuable suggestions. Next time & onwards i will try to keep these in my mind & try to hav some more good portraits, Thnx once again.
