My 22 month old niece and God-daughter... {} D70; 80-200 AFS; SB800 and LumiQuest Softbox. Manual; 1/250; f/5.0; ISO 200; flash set to TTL. All comments and critiques welcomed.
She's perfect, Clive. I doubt you could take a bad picture of such a comely lass :wink: . I see you've added the Lumiquest softbox to your arsenal. How do you like it???
Great looking girl nice shot as Frank I would be interesed in hearing about the LumiQuest Softbox, how many stops do you loose when using it
Very nice kid. Image has red colour cast on it, I would apply http://www.rawmagick.us/clivegriffin.acv and USM 30/15/4 on top of that. The intermediate pont in the Red curve is to adjust eyewhites tint.
I like it lots, Frank. It's easy to add / remove and does the job it claims to do. I think it's over-priced but it's obviously set at "what the market can bear" as opposed to "cost plus".
I acted upon both of your suggestions, Iliah, and I'm delighted with the result. Many thanks for your constructive criticism and practical help.
I think the image is a bit out of focus...definitely not as sharp as the 80-200mm could be, even wide open... Otherwise, I love the expression on her face! So precious
Thanks for your comments, Grace. I focussed on the little girl's eyes, got the "in-focus" indicator, locked focus, recomposed and shot. Here's my list of excuses ... er... er... reasons why the pic was less than the sharpest possible with that lens... 1) the shot was hand held and D70 + 80-200 + SB800 is heavy and I'm a wimp 2) she moved twixt cup and lip 3) I was very, very close to the minimum focus distance and might well have strayed too close 4) the pic as shown here is completely unsharpened. I've since sharpened it using the parameters suggested by Iliah (above) 5) those are all the excu reasons I can think of. :wink:
Dear Cleve, The settings I suggested were more for local contrast then for sharpening. But low contrast photos often look unsharp.
for 1) and 2) - the shutter speed was 1/250, should be enough for 80mm zoom setting even without the flash. But what flash mode was used? How much ambient light was there? for 3) - with this lens at 80 mm f/5 and closest focus you should have about 70mm depth of field.
Hi Iliah 1) and 2) The flash mode was TTL with the flash on the camera, not bounced but diffused with a (flash mounted) Lumapix softbox. The pic was taken indoors, about 5' away and at right angle to a 8' x 6' window in the late afternoon. The light outside was grey and poor, no other interenal light source was utilised. 3) I understand your calculation but my point was I might have strayed inside the closest focus distance. Thanks for your continued input.
Dear Clive, That is what the calculation seems to prove. AF-s version focuses to about 4.5', while the previous one - to 5.5'. Whas it "true" TTL, or "Balanced" TTL flash mode?
It was "true" TTL because I remember a post on (whisper it) DPReview which suggested that was the best option for the kind of shot I was attempting.
