My fun moments with the 50mm f1.4 :)

Here they are, still struggling to get to grips with the 50mm f1..4 but I know with time and persistence it will come.

These is what I end up doing when I am in the mood for fun with the little one, its just so difficult to get him to stand still , but hey, its not the subject's fault here ha



Anyone for a game of chess here?



oh, my big brother is game then,



Told you, I could beat you






and now I will go and play with my fish ok?

EDITED: removed the fish macro shots, too distracting here and would rather get comments and suggestions on the above pics instead

Last (non fish) shot is a cracker. Those big eyes which contain an interesting reflection. A nice play of light from left to right also. Maybe a little localised sharpening of the eyes will make this shot even better.

RR,
yup, I noticed that in the look. He was standing just next to the patio door so the light was on his right side. But I wanted so much to get the focus right and I was literally inches away from him. Decided to concentrate on his eyes, so much so that I ended up just losing the plot . Notice I took off part of his head from the top. Then cropping it became another tricky issue, with my inexperience . I wish the shot could have been more in focus though, from the sides.

I selected aperture priority and decided not to use the flash, so everytime I increased the aperture value the bleeming flash signal started blinking. .

Now please someone correct me if I am wrong, as this is one of the things I have been wanting to ask for a while now. Assuming I select aperture priority like in the situation explained above, and if by selecting a certain F stop the flash starts blinking, what do you usually do? Do you disregard it and take it further and snap? Or you take it on board and re-evaluate the situation and either open up the aperture or increase the ISO etc.

Thanks for your help

The cropped head doesn't bother me, but I'd be tempted to take more off the top to a square format so that it looks totally intentional

In the situation you describe I'd either increase iso (if within acceptable level) or indeed open the aperture back up. You could of course actually use your flash bounced off the ceiling or wall.

Thanks RR,

Definitely want to try to improve that image of the little one, I like it a lot so will work on it with the ideas you suggest.

Oh regarding bouncing flash, never thought of that to compensate the lack of light. The things I learn here from you all as time progresses , thank you very much

At 1/60 s at 50 mm focal length I would ignore the flash symbol. With shake reduction on you could easily go down further.
I have the dynamic range setting on as standard so I usually shoot at ISO 200 anyways. I wouldn't hesitate to up the ISO to 400 under the conditions.
And you were not far off with the focus, judging by the sharp region on his hair I would say it's a bit in front of his eyes. But getting the focus right and a kid as subject don't go together very well, I guess
You definitely got yourself a keeper here, no matter what!

Prieni

hello,

out of all the pictures, i prefer the 1st one, on the grounds that you captured movement,the little fellas thought process, and determination

although the fallen chess peice kept distracting my eye

good picture.

many thanks,

roger.

Love the first (concentrating with tongue out) and the last (lovely expression and nice depth of field)

Here's a visualisation of what I suggested Aminstar. A quick before & after shot (although have cropped original too)

Some global unsharp mask. Further unsharp mask on the eyes only. & boosting of contrast.

[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/beforeandafter.jpg[/IMG]

You could sharpen the eyes only & go for soft focus, but your little one has baby soft skin still, so why not show it off !

Lovely shots Amin, I prefer first,third and fifth most.Best wishes

RR, I think you overdid the sharpening The eyes are much more shiny, but... I preferred the face softness on the original image.

RR

I really like what you did to it. The eyes look more vivid in my opinion and the lips have that more vibrant colour that I like to see.

I am still struggling with PS. But catching up in leaps and bounces. I will try to have a go at it with the same picture and see if I can bring it to close how it looks after you worked on it. Would it be too much to ask if you could give a brief and short run down of how you did it? I know you mention you used global unsharpening tool, then localised unsharpening of the eyes and boosting the contrast. My problem is everytimme I try the sharpening tool the image just either starts showing shiny spots (probably overdoing it) or just looks totally bad.
Any tips please?

Many thanks

Amin

don't forget when focussing that a lot can happen in that small time between half pressing (focussing) and fully releasing the shutter, especially with children. They're like little birds - never stop moving.
So you may have been focussed perfectly but took too long to finish the process and take the shot. Happens all the time, especially if you are being gentle to avoid shake.
That last shot is lovely.

Amin, there are plenty of photoshop sharpening tutorials on the web - start with google & browse them till you find one your comfortable to follow. I think the sharpening on my example is slightly overdone, it's alot easier to control on an original size image. If your mainly interested in portraits, you may want to look at sharpening using a high pass filter (again plenty of tutorials around) These will go into alot more depth than I am here.

I just did it quickly to demonstrate what I meant by my suggestions.
When I said "global" I meant the whole image.
I used Unsharp mask on the whole image (use the preview to judge the amounts - try not to overdo it, you can always add more by running it again)
Then the "local" sharpening of the eyes I did like this -
Using the elipse or lasso selection tool draw roughly around the eyes (just outside of the lashes & eyelids),
one eye first then hold shift whilst selecting the other (using shift allows you to add to the selection) if you struggle with this you could always do one eye at a time.
Once you have your selection go to the "select" menu & select "modify" then "feather" - I used a value of 10 pixels on this small image but you may need to use more on an original, maybe 30ish.
Now sharpen using unsharp mask as you did earlier, but remember the eyes have already been sharpened as part of the whole image so go gently with the sharpening here (you'll notice some halos on my quick fix)
I then boosted the contrast a little (good for the web) using the basic contrast adjustment.

I hope this helps Amin. If you're still struggling then PM me your msn messenger address & I can go through it with you step-by-step if you'd like.

RR,

Long day today at work , just got in and catching up with the forum.
Thank you very much for that RR. I can certainly repeat the whole process step by step as you explained it . That was simple and straight to the point. I was reading your steps and just visualising it as I am now getting more and more familiarised with the photoshop tools and menus. Its got to be persistence paying up as a few weeks ago I would have no clue of the terms you were mentioning .

I will give it a go now and also look for some photoshop tutorials around the web. And thanks for your offer, I will hold you on to that , soon I get stuck with something in photoshop as you so kindly offered to help.

thanks again

Amin