DOF Hawaii: I tried a photo of my wife with a blossom stem, waterfalls, & mountian range as a background utilizing Apeture priority. My goal was to have her as the subject while...

nascar27 Loc: Kansas City, MO

I tried a photo of my wife with a blossom stem, waterfalls, & mountian range as a background utilizing Apeture priority. My goal was to have her as the subject while showing the beautiful background in a way that hopefully does not distract too much from the subject. As a beginner I am trying to pay attention to composition as well the other techinal details which make good photos. Input is appreciated.

DOF attempt in Hawaii of my wife Janet

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

nascar27 wrote:

I tried a photo of my wife with a blossom stem, waterfalls, & mountian range as a background utilizing Apeture priority. My goal was to have her as the subject while showing the beautiful background in a way that hopefully does not distract too much from the subject. As a beginner I am trying to pay attention to composition as well the other techinal details which make good photos. Input is appreciated.

I use an app on my iPhone for DOF called FSTOP. You key in the lens mm, the distance to subject, and the aperture. It then tells you the DOF in terms of distances in front of and behind the subject that will be in focus. For this shot you'll likely need to stop down to F/16 or smaller to get the greatest DOF.

john blue Loc: Lowndesboro, Al

nice shot, looks good except for the red flower.

tainkc Loc: Kansas City

Believe it or not, even at 1/200 sec. you are over exposed slightly. The photo itself has too much information. It actually looks better in more of a portrait fashion. As for the DOF, you would have done good to go at F16 as suggested but you probably would want to be further back from your subject and zoom in tighter. I played with the exposure and I did a tight cropping and it still looks pretty good. If you wish, I could post what I did, here.

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

nascar27 wrote:

IMy goal was to have her as the subject while showing the beautiful background in a way that hopefully does not distract too much from the subject.

I think you have accomplished your goal. Your subject is in focus and the background is sufficiently out of focus to not distract from her, yet show a sense of place. The red blossom is a distraction though, as someone pointed out.

Due to the lightness of your subject & her blouse, you probably could have had the background a bit more in focus while still not distracting from your subject.

Your choice of a horizontal format was, in my opinion, a good one as your intent was to show where your subject was. The horizontal format permits more of this background to be seen.

I think you image is a fine composition. 8-)

nascar27 Loc: Kansas City, MO

Please do post your adjustments to the photo. I want to learn and as they say a picture is worth a thousand
words. Thanks.

nascar27 Loc: Kansas City, MO

My thanks for all of you who gave me feedback concerning this photo. This will help me improve to get the best results possible.

tainkc Loc: Kansas City

nascar27 wrote:

Please do post your adjustments to the photo. I want to learn and as they say a picture is worth a thousand
words. Thanks.

Just one variation. Here you go. Just toning down a wee bit.

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

tainkc wrote:

nascar27 wrote:

Please do post your adjustments to the photo. I want to learn and as they say a picture is worth a thousand
words. Thanks.

Just one variation. Here you go. Just toning down a wee bit.

Like I said, a horizontal format to show the background which was his intent. This is good, but a completely different type of portrait, where the place it was taken is of no consequence. In my opinion. 8-)

tainkc Loc: Kansas City

Bmac wrote:

tainkc wrote:

nascar27 wrote:

Please do post your adjustments to the photo. I want to learn and as they say a picture is worth a thousand
words. Thanks.

Just one variation. Here you go. Just toning down a wee bit.

Like I said, a horizontal format to show the background which was his intent. This is good, but a completely different type of portrait, where the place it was taken is of no consequence. In my opinion. 8-)

True perhaps. But what I saw in the original photo was a lot of unnecessary information as it turned out. On the other hand, if the flower was at least in focus also, we would be talking a different scenario completely. Lastly, when I see pics like these, I usually consider them just vacation snapshots. My wife and I do this ourselves when on holiday. If this is the case, I would have simply done what I did with the toning down of the brightness in pp and I would not have cropped.

nascar27 Loc: Kansas City, MO

Thanks for posting your edited results. I really appreciate your input and it makes sense seeing the difference.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Personally I think that the scenery and the flower are both too blurred. In the case of the scenery, my opinion is, if it's going to be there, go for it - it should either be sharp or totally blurred. In my opinion, you've left it half way (same with the flower to a certain extent).

My advice would be to have the subject and the scenery both sharp. To compensate for the lack of focus on the subject, put her in the centre of the shot (like they used to do in the old days :) ).

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Bmac wrote:

quote=nascar27 IMy goal was to have her as the su... (show quote)

Agreed.

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

nascar27 wrote:

I tried a photo of my wife with a blossom stem, waterfalls, & mountian range as a background utilizing Apeture priority. My goal was to have her as the subject while showing the beautiful background in a way that hopefully does not distract too much from the subject. As a beginner I am trying to pay attention to composition as well the other techinal details which make good photos. Input is appreciated.

Opinion only. First beautiful shot you guys picked a very pretty spot.

If short DOF was your goal you did a nice job. Your wife is nicely focused while the background doesn't distract.

Framing could be better. She should be more to the center of the shot.
Perhaps if you'd have had her step slightly to her left so you could see the waterfall but get more to the center I think it would have been a prettier shot. The reason is, with her backdrop out of focus it's not the subject... she is. So she should be framed more to the center where the subject belongs.

You're doing fine, keep up the nice work.

nascar27 Loc: Kansas City, MO

Thanks jimmya. I wasn't sure at the time how to compose that shot. I really wanted the waterfall and mountain range in the frame as a backdrop. However I do understand how she would look better centered in the frame. At the time I really wanted the waterfall in the shot but now I see how it could have been done without her being off center so much.