General Tips

From portraiture to photojournalism, fashion, weddings and whatever
mcddeb
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Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:20 am

General Tips

Unread post by mcddeb »

David K. gave me excellent advice on setting for shooting interiors i.e., night portrait mode, ISO 200. Is there a general basic set up for portraits that provide a good base line to work for like the one David gave me for interiors? I shoot with the A700 and I will soon be purchasing a 24-70 2.8 lens. I know every scenario is different, but are there any basics to start from?

Thanks,

Debra
Magnusvb
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Location: The Milky Way

Re: General Tips

Unread post by Magnusvb »

Well Debra,
I'm not shooting people very much (I like cars :) ), so my only tips is that setting the camera to center-weight metering when shooting people up close.

Not very much - but the only thing I could come up with 8)

Regards, Magnus
Javelin
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Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: General Tips

Unread post by Javelin »

I don't shoot people much but I did learn a few things.

For head shots make sure the eyes always have the sharpest focus. Girls don't usually like real sharp pictures of their faces but I don't like defocussing. someone taught me to shoot one sharp and one slightly OOF frame and combine them in post with the sharp image on top and the oof underneath. it makes a nice halo effect and tends to soften the image. David also once posted about a piece of software called portrait pro max that I bought immediately and love it to bits. My 16yo daughter likes it a LOT too ... she keeps bringing me pictures of her friends now.

Looks like your buying the right lens for the Job too.

If you want to see how powerful portraiture can be I'm going to look for and post in the main forum here a link, if I can find it , to someones gallery his stuff is amazing.
David Kilpatrick
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Re: General Tips

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

If you want Portrait Professional, it does a great job, and it is now for Mac as well as PC.

Visit: http://www.portraitprofessional.com

When buying it, be sure to get the top version, as this does raw conversions directly from Sony files, and does them rather well too.

Enter this code to get a 10 per cent discount: MPA78

David
mcddeb
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Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:20 am

Re: General Tips

Unread post by mcddeb »

Thanks Javelin, I appreciate all the tips and assistance I can get. Look forward to seeing the link you post.

David - uh, wow, that's amazing software. So this is what the pro's must use to make people so happy with their photos? I think there is a mental disconnect in how we think we look and how we really look and most are much happier with photos that project how we think(hope) we look. Yes/No? I keep going back and looking at Portrait Professional. I know everyone wants to look better, I know this might be an obvious statement, but do folks really think they look like the improved photo and do you think anyone would complain that they don't look like themselves? Or are they just happy with looking so good? That software does amazing things!

Thanks for the tip and the discount code, I will be purchasing that software as well as attending every seminar I can afford and convince my husband I need to go to!!!

Debra
Javelin
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Re: General Tips

Unread post by Javelin »

I think this is true about all photos people take. I've noticed people remember things in brighter colours than they actually saw. while on vacation they don't see the garbage in the gutter, or they see it and don't remember it. And they always prefer the more saturated images because of that. it fits the ideal they had in their head when they imagined a scene

mcddeb wrote:I think there is a mental disconnect in how we think we look and how we really look and most are much happier with photos that project how we think(hope) we look. Yes/No?
Debra
gio67
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Re: General Tips

Unread post by gio67 »

read your post on this thread last night and bought this today david, very impressed , muchos gratias

http://www.portraitprofessional.com
harvey
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Posts: 201
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:25 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: General Tips

Unread post by harvey »

David Kilpatrick wrote:If you want Portrait Professional, it does a great job, and it is now for Mac as well as PC.
[...]
Enter this code to get a 10 per cent discount: MPA78

David
I have been meaning to look into this for a while after seeing the adverts. Note that this code has expired but there is an alternative here.

Harvey
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