Portrait, June, 2012

[sury]

That would be equivalent of 75 on Sony A55 right? I do have Minolta 58/1.4 MD, Minolta 50/1.7 MA, 85/1.4 Rokinon MF, 60/2 Tamron in my Arsenal.
I am now very motivated try using these lenses on my daughter this weekend. She has no idea what her dad has in store for her this weekend.

Sury

[Dr. Harout]

The Minolta 50/1.7 would suffice for that purpose Sury.

[sury]

Doc,
That is great. I have two copies sitting on my shelf. I can put them on both A700 and A900 and see how things come out.
It would be a good learning experience for me. I need to get hold of my (suddenly became busy) brother about my lens.

Sury

[Anne_LilyofTheValley]

Sury,

You have to take shots and share your experience with us

[sury]

Anne,
I did not mean to hijack your thread but .... Here are couple of quick shots of my daughter. I just shoved my
camera in her face and took some shots. As you can see she was not happy initially but warmed up later. Both cropped.
By the way these are taken by two different copies of Minolta 50mmf1.7. I bought one on eBay and when I
went to India, I discovered my Maxxum 7000 languishing in the shelf (I bought it in 1987) in disrepair but
found 50 f1.7 and 28 f2.8 lenses. I brought both of them back with me.

I found considerable distortion on A900 but has more details. Thank your for the inspiration and motivation.

A700 with 50mm f1.7. Hair is all black.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsu ... .jpg[/img]
DSC16057crop by BigSury, on Flickr[/url]

A900 with 50mm f1.7. You can see the red highlights (subtle as my daughter would call it) on one of good ones (without distortion). I guess I need to learn the right distance for A900 on this camera or go buy 85/1.4.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsu ... .jpg[/img]
DSC32064crop by BigSury, on Flickr[/url]

With best regards,
Sury

[Dr. Harout]

Sury, both are nice, but the second one is a bit "burned".
50/1.7 is to be used on APS-C for portraits, so I guess your brother is to be blamed for you not owning a 85/1.4.
But, if you will opt for a Samyang/Rokinon 85/1.4 instead of the ZA one, then my advice will be to stick for the Sony 85/2.8 which is a real wonder.

[sury]

Doc,
Thank you. When you say, "burned", do you mean over sharpened ("over cooked")? These are straight from
the camera. You are right about 50 mm sitting on A700. I do have a Rokinon 85/1.4, thanks to some impressive
shots made by a certain doc on this forum. It it still not chipped yet.

Sury

[Dr. Harout]

Doc,
Thank you. When you say, "burned", do you mean over sharpened ("over cooked")? These are straight from
the camera. You are right about 50 mm sitting on A700. I do have a Rokinon 85/1.4, thanks to some impressive
shots made by a certain doc on this forum. It it still not chipped yet.

Sury

Ooops

[Dr. Harout]

By burned I meant something like a shot which was very much overexposed, then compensated with software thus resulting in a kind of veil like appearance in some parts. Over-sharpening a portrait is not a good idea too, imo.
Also, one of the many things I've learned from our troubadour-boss, is to decrease the temperature a bit on almost all shots (5-10% of the original value on LR), I think you should opt for that too.

[Anne_LilyofTheValley]

Hi Sury, I am glad you've started to take pics of your daughter.
The first one is nice. But I would advice you to take pictures with the window light, I always try to take pictures mainly with window light.

[sury]

Anne,
That is lovely, the one you posted. I will give it a try. It is not like we have a dearth of sunlight
in San Jose, California. Thank you.

Sury

[mvanrheenen]

I'm not one for portraiture, but I saw a tutorial a few weeks back from someone who makes a living out of it. If you use windows light, you can bring some details in the shadows by using a piece of white cardboard as a reflector. Found it a good tip, as you can bounce a bit of the light back at your subject.

Mark

[Dusty]

I've been wanting to post this one, and the recent comments about window light make it even more relevant.

Here's a photo of my cousin Mel taken after our Aunt's funeral. He saw sitting at the table with strong window light on his right, and the white kitchen wall giving good bounce lighting.

Mel-web.jpg

(103.82 KiB) Downloaded 2270 times

Dusty

[mvanrheenen]

The lighting is indeed great, as is the portrait of your cousin.

Mark

[johnstra]

I love the way the first shot is composed offset. Her right eye is right in the centre horizontally and more or less on the third vertically so the sense of eye contact is very strong. The soft light and skin tones are lovely. And as for those blue eyes, I wish I was young again! The second shot does not have quite the same impact. You got your moment with the first. How difficult portrait photography is. The black and white shot is also interesting. It asks questions.

Regards,

Bob