Post Your Best Portrait Shots!

[Keith B]

Just posting this because it is really the only shot I've taken with my new 35 1.4.

Really? I totally dig this photo! I love the tonal range and her expression. I know she's not really looking at anything, and I'm sure she'sthinking "Can you please hurry this up so I can get back to ..." but the composition makes me want to know what she's looking at. I really feel a lot of emotion from thisphoto. What was the EXIF? Was the light source a window?


Lewis

Thanks Lewis.


Actually she was looking out the window observing the weather, nothing planned expression wise. It has been out of the ordinarily cold here in FL and it was rainy so she was just looking. I had just been clicking away for a few frames before. The window is the sole light source.


EXIF: 5DmkII1/40sec35 1.4L @ 1.4 ISO400


The full rez is quite breathtaking as far as color and detail. It is really unbelievable for a shot at 1.4. I am so tickled with the 35L. If they are going to upgrade this lens, good luck there isn't much room for improvement.

[Rodger]

The window is the sole light source.

I wish my windows did that! haha. I could've saved on this strobist stuff!


And by the way Keith, thank you for taking that photo from my previous post and messing with it. It got me on a track that I like better for the photo. I'll update it here after I export them from LR. Thanks for your help!


Rodger

[Keith B]

My pleasure Rodger.


I'm looking forward to see the next version of that shot.


It's funny talking about the window light and strobes. When I first started shooting way back when, most of my favorite shots were natural light. Anton Cobjin was my hero loved the stuff he shot of U2 for the Joshua Tree. So everything I shot, I was trying to emulate that. Years later I get back into photography, working with with studio photographers (they were obsessed with f/8 and ISO100) and all the fancy strobes I became obsessed with them. Now, I no longer would depend on the sun I'll make my own. All my shots started looking synthetic and it was everything my photographic instinct wasn't. Along the way I became so obsessed with the strobes, I kind of forgot what natural light looked like and that essentially you want your strobes to match natural light as much as possible.


I have been hell bent on trying to make my strobes match natural light (as much as possible) and now I finding my strobe shots are flat.


So I'm trying to retrain myself, leaving the strobes in the case and working with natural light. Then I'll ad a strobe here and there and try and find that balance.

[devsalvi]

A picture I took of my wife when she visited this Christmas.

[powers_brent]

Kodak P20 Flash shot thru camera right @ 1/4? power and 430EXII at 1/16? behnd subject left tiggered by yong nuo CTR-301p. SOOC!!!


Canon Rebel XS with Canon EF 100mm f/2.0 @ 2.0, 1/125, ISO 200