Katie - Boston's new model

[Alpha_7]

After a huge dinner of Chinese at the Chinese Pearl in China town, Katie and I got throughly lost in ... well not even sure where to call it of Boston, on the way to wherever it was, we past the Boston Gardens and Boston Common, some of the most beautiful parks you'll find, and Boston has plenty of them. Anyways, rarely do I have a happy model, so I made the most of it, and stretched the friendship.. but here are some of the results, harsh feedback is encouraged and this sort of shots (sunset, twilight portraits) aren't my thing, I was also trying to make them useable momentos of Boston too.

[Raskill]

I like the poses, although I would have been more inclined to have some shoulders in the shot where she'd balancing a horse on her head.

Exposure wise, I think maybe some more fill flash would have helped, but that can be fixed in PPing. I like the clours in the sunset and street lights.

Jeez, I'f i'd known you were there, you could have picked up my Ebay purchase!

Nice series of pics mate!

[Oscar]

Cool shots Craig. Katie should be more than happy with those.

I'm not sure about the composition of the 2nd shot though.

Well done.

So did Katie take any of you Craig?

Cheers, Mick

[Glen]

I like them Craig, some fill flash or PP will bring them up when you get home.

[Alpha_7]

Hey guys thanks for the feedback.

Firstly Fill flash was used in each of these shots, that was actually part of my experiment, dealing with the ambient light and also lighting up Katie sufficiently. I only had the pop-up flash as I only took the camera and 2 lenses to dinner with me

So given most of the feedback suggested Fill flash, was I too subtel, or has my PP reduce the affect, my LCD is meant to be calibrated but maybe it isn't on the mark ? Does Katie look underexposed ?

Secondly, the dodgey pose in the second... your right I should of done better. It was rather dark at this stage and I was lighting on my back on the ground, with the 50 mm so framing was a issue, also with Katie being fairly short, it was hard to get them both in frame, this was the best I could do at the time, from the other side I might have a little more working room, or I could use the 18-200 but the DOF, etc will be different.


Katie did take some shots of me, I'll let her post a few tonight

[Alpha_7]

After everyone feedback re the fill flash, I tried again with two of the same shots to see if I could rebalance the shots.

Not sure if I haven't overdone it now with them.. but I'm sure a happy median can be found.

[stubbsy]

Way better Craig. these no longer look underexposed.

[Geoff]

Nice PP work Craig - much better!

[Oz_Beachside]

The first and forth are similar in lighting. Two things immediately come to mind. I cant see enough of the background to make out where you are. For example, as these are travel shots, its nice to see just a tad more DOF. I know for me, when I travel, even simple things like the shape of the lamp post in the background, can show me and remind me of the subtle differences around the world, in similar things.

So, a little more DOF, would provide more detail to the captured memory. The downside of this, is that it would require more from your popup fill flash, and you might already be at its limit. I'd try to reduce the exposure on the sunlight, as it draws the eye in on these shots, shutter speed should do this.

Having said that, these are some of the best examples I have seen using onboard flash, so very well done.

[fishafotos]

The 2nd set (with the extra fill flash) look far better. I like the comp, I think a few different colored lights in the bouquet would look great, I am also thinking that the WB might be a little cool.

[Yi-P]

Very good work Craig, the PP'ed certain does the job