 Mandi Benoit |
Please look at my work....need const. criticism ;) I'd love it if some of you could take a look at my pics in the gallery. I don't have many portrait sessions under my belt, but I've selected a few of the "better" pics I've taken in the last few months. One main problem I'm having is lighting. I purchased a gold reflector to bounce light back into the subject's faces but there are two problems. One is that I need to tag someone along with me to hold the darned thing or buy a stand for it (more equipment), and two is that in the area I've been shooting in, if the trees move in the wind and a brighter ray of light pics up on the reflector mid-shoot the subjects face is as bright as the sun itself (if that makes any sense). I have a Canon Rebel 2000 EOS SLR....is there some kind of flash I can purchase to help with this problem? Second question is about auto vs. manual settings on the camera. You can change the f-stop settings and aparture and all that good stuff and still leave the camera on auto-focus, right? I tried using the manual focus over the weekend and every last picture came out blurry. I thought my vision was 50/50 but I cannot explain what happened there.
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Chris J. Browne |
Your pictures look great. I work with my wife as technical everything! She shoot, I do the rest. Block light, bounce/reflect light, digital touchup, burn cds, etc. We use a Canon Elan II with the 420EX flash. They work together with E-TTL metering. Works great. . .yours look the same. Minor shadows are caused by not enough light in that area; they also look darker by excessive makeup. I think the big flash really helps "fill in" the shadows. Provides the "even light" effect. We use pvc pipe in the shape of a big T. We use three small clamps to hold it to the top. I hold it in the path of the sun. It really takes two working behind the camera to do those outside shots consistantly. The Canon E-TTL is so good that we use is auto all the way. It always produces the perfect balance between forground subject and background exposure. Autofocus should work independent of manually setting f/stop and shutter speed. If your focus screen is a matte screen without split circle then focus is very difficult. And to chance focus at f/4 or f/2.8 when the focus area is small is very risky. Maybe this will help. These are my wife's pict of a beautiful couple that were married last July. Every photo was exposed and filled to perfection: the couple complained that they could choose because they liked them all (and bought two sets of each plus 200 4x6s for announcements!). Thank you Canon. You will need to use a flash meter to properly expose with the manual settings. We use 100 ASA Kodak Gold. Why? Because: 1) it is cheap, 2) it is consistant quality, 3) is scans perfectly with minimal grain. Did I mention it is cheap! And the latitude. . .you can over expose by 3 stops and still get a great shot. . .try that with chrome. Although chrome would be sharper! But chrome doesn't scan as well on the machine we use. . .so it is negatives for now. Hope we got to the answer in there. The flash is about $178 at KEH.COM Let me know what happens. And take a look at the pics my wife took! http://www.geocities.com/jillbrownephotography/01.jpg http://www.geocities.com/jillbrownephotography/02.jpg http://www.geocities.com/jillbrownephotography/03.jpg http://www.geocities.com/jillbrownephotography/04.jpg http://www.geocities.com/jillbrownephotography/05.jpg http://www.geocities.com/jillbrownephotography/06.jpg
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anonymous |
Mmmm Chris, you don't happen to work for Canon do you????? LOL Well I also love Canon, probably mainly because it is so easy to use. I have the 420EX Speedlite, if you are going to do portraits Mandi, go for this flash, as the bounce is great. Although Chris, maybe you can help me, what is the difference between setting the flash on the green dot and the lighting bolt (high sync), I really never know what I should have it on. Mandi, I am giving you some comments on each photo - hope it helps! Click on each photo to read them.
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