Raider Fan Loc: Lake County, IL.

I went to a Civil War reenactment last summer with the intent of only shooting face shots. I post some these in the phot Gallery to mixed reves. I would like this forums opinions.

Thanks for looking and of course all comments are welcome.

stevenelson Loc: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma

Very good pics. Thanks for sharing. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

They look awfully underexposed. A little fill flash would have done wonders. With the right exposure they would be really nice.

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

I'm with the Captain. Underexposed on pretty much every one.
Fill would have really helped. I do shoot the street using only natural light. The difference is i usually try to find what I call a Kicker. A bright surface near the subject for reflection of the Sun. Having all the dark tones where you were at you really didn't have that option. Shooting a full exposure in the shade typically requires fast glass as well... at least if you want to keep your ISO down. I usually shoot these types of shots at 2.8 at around 150-180mm. Gives me enough DOF to cover the face and works in light similar to what you have. I would be curious if you were shooting in AV mode. Your in camera meter should not have had a problem with this shot. (Unless your EV was in the negative)
I typically shoot AV when no flash is used.

Curious of a couple of things.

1) What were the camera settings?
2) DId you shoot this in RAW?
3) Can you post(store) the original of 1?

Raider Fan Loc: Lake County, IL.

Thanks for the info and the advice. These were shot mostly at 4.8-5.6 at 1/160 at ISO200 with shutter priority using a Nikon D-60. These were shot in JPG because at the time I did not have a RAW editor.

Original of #1

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Thanks for the download. I have found it easier for me to shoot in AV rather than TV modes. Your lens was not fast enough to get a correct exposure at 160th. You would have been ok at 2.8 if the lens would go that fast. This does bring up the prime reason I Shoot AV. In AV you shutter would have dropped to say 1/60. You see it in your viewfinder and you know your too slow. You then crank your ISO till you get the shutter you need. ISO 400 would have worked just fine. The image is overly saturated due to the under exposure. The Face on the guy is real red.

Really neat to examine the image and settings and see what's possible. I have to enhance light sources quite a bit these days in post. It is not the easiest thing to do well. You did get some noise in the underexposure but there is quite a lot of detail in this image.

Thanks for posting the original. If your interested in seeing a more contrasty image(Not the plugin or sharpen kinda contrast)
I would be glad to share it here. Creating a more contrasty image helps identify where light is naturally falling on an image. I use this method to help me in my modifications for black and white conversions.

Thanks again for sharing.

Russ

Raider Fan Loc: Lake County, IL.

Thanks for the tips. I had just bought the D-60, maybe a month before the reenactment,and I wanted to do a photo book of Civil War characters. I posted these images in the gallery last year and I made a phoot book of them. I was going for the old looking and underexposed shots that when I aged them they would look more authentic. Thats what I was going for. Take a look at the link with the aged shots from last summer.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-52430-1.html

Thanks again,

Tom

Raider Fan Loc: Lake County, IL.

Russ, I sent you one link but overlooked the second one so here it is.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-53162-1.html

Tom

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Cool! Keep at it.
Nik Color Efex has some aging filters. The sepia is probably a better way to go for authenticity. Just my 2 C.

Russ