Hi Everyone,


An unexpected part of visiting my family for an early Christmas this past weekend was my brother-in-law asked me to take a series of portraits of him for an upcoming newspaper ad he wanted to run for his business. This is my first attempt to actually take a staged portrait shot. I tried to remember as much as I could from what I've read on the forum, but my "set up" was a lamp placed on a step ladder to my left, my sister holding another lamp to my right, and placing him in front of a wall in their living room. I opened the shades on all the windows to maximize light in the room. Despite that, the EFS 15-85 still needed a flash to get proper exposure and those pictures where awful (too much detail on the face, odd shadows). So I switched to the 50 mm f/1.8and needed every bit of the aperture.


Please let me know what you see in the photos below and how I could improve.


Canon 7D EF 50 mm f/1.8


1/60, f/2.2, ISO 400


[img]/resized-image.ashx/__size/800x0/__key/CommunityServer-Components-UserFiles/00-00-00-46-64/BIL-1.JPG[/img]


1/60, f/2.2, ISO 400


[img]/resized-image.ashx/__size/600x0/__key/CommunityServer-Components-UserFiles/00-00-00-46-64/BiL-2.JPG[/img]


1/60, f/1.8, ISO 400


[img]/resized-image.ashx/__size/800x0/__key/CommunityServer-Components-UserFiles/00-00-00-46-64/BiL-3.JPG[/img]


Things that I see:
  1. The first two have a shadow from his nose created by the lamp on my right (one my sister was holding). I corrected this by the third picture.
  2. I should have probably increased to ISO 800 and my shutter speed to be faster than 1/80.
  3. I was about 3-4 ft from him, if I had a 85 mm prime, I could of had a little more distance.



Thanks,


Brant