Newbie needs help!!

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pprivett

New member
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I recently purchased a 7100 and this is my first opportunity to try it out. The photo opportunity was very stressful and frenzied and I never got to change any settings on my camera. It stayed in Program mode the whole time and I'm not thrilled with results. The first photo was taken by a semi-professional in the same area, during the same time. The second photo is mine. I'd like that same look to my photos, saturated colors, crisp but soft. If that makes sense. Can someone point me in the right directions as far as settings are concerned? THANKS!
 

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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
The professional did not just take the shot and post it. He did a lot of post processing. How much post processing did you do and what software?

Here is just a little tweaking

DSC_1730.jpg
 
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PapaST

Senior Member
Can you supply the exif data on your picture? It looks soft on their faces. The aperture looks pretty small making your shutter speed probably longer than you would want (esp. if you're using a longer lens). I would probably spot meter on their face as well rather than a whole image.

Did the other photographer do any post processing?
 
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WayneF

Senior Member
pprivett said:
The second photo is mine. I'd like that same look to my photos, saturated colors, crisp but soft.
Click to expand...

The lighting is not quite the same, the first seems to be in deeper shade than the second. But it is mostly exposure and white balance. Yours is a good picture, it would be hard to criticize it, but exposure may be slightly hot for this fair skinned lady. 1/3 or 1/2 stop less exposure would help her. The light meter overexposed due to all of the black clothes, which helped them, but it's tough on ladies (the white dress would tend to underexposure - that is just how light meters work). Less is sort of like saturation, in that it does not burn skin out to be bright white. My own habit is to crank up exposure to be 'all it can take", but which is pretty tough on portraits, a little less is more. And maybe slightly more pink white balance for the lady. This stuff is easy to do in Raw.
 
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yauman

Senior Member
Yea, the other one has been extensively post processed and yours look like it's straight out of the camera (SOC). Did you shoot in RAW or JPG? If you shoot in RAW you can fix it much more. Like someone already pointed out, it looks over exposed and there are blown highlights in the whites (white flowers has no details).
You must have used spot metering and metered on the dark suit or dress. Should use center-weight and meter on the faces in this situation.

Here's my rendition of a fix - lowered the exposure by 1 stop, increase contrast, applied some sharpening and straighten out the crop (slanted doors are no no unless you are going for a specific artsy look!) It's the best I can do with a low res JPG. If you have the RAW you can try blurring the background like the other one one but tough to make it look natural with a low res JPG.

Couple.jpg
 
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Jonathan

Senior Member
Welcome pprivett. Unfortunately there is no silver bullet, no fast-track past years of practice. Get snapping and RTFM. This is a great place for advice but there are too many variables, including individual taste, to answer simply. Can you get hold of the other photographer and ask him/her what settings were used?
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
If you look carefully at the "semi-pro's" image, you should notice a few things:

Choice of background. Seems he deliberately choose a dark less distracting background that makes the subject stand out of the picture.

Choice of focal length. A longer lens with wider aperture can create a better out of focus background making the background even less distracting.

In your picture, the background is quite distracting: Door handle, red dress in the bottom right corner. Also your choice of focal length is making the woman's elbow to appear larger and the pose that she took is not very soft looking and less pleasing. These are choices that you can make that will make or kill a good photograph.

Who said learning was easy and fast...

Welcome to Nikointes and enjoy your Nikon.
 
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pprivett

New member
Thank you all for your quick replies and advice. I wanted to contact the photographer, but didn't know if that would be insulting or taken as trying to infringe on her territory! :) I think I just wanted to know whether my camera is capable of taking a picture that looks like that or not. I guess I didn't realize how much post processing photographers do to their photos. I knew at the time that the background was terrible. I would have chosen a much different setting, but time and the amount of people around kept me from doing what I really wanted! So if I shot RAW, what program to you suggest I use to create something similar to hers? Is there any program that is reasonably priced for an amateur to use? Unfortunately, I certainly can't spend $500 on photoshop. I probably did tweak this pic a little in iPhoto.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
pprivett said:
Thank you all for your quick replies and advice. I wanted to contact the photographer, but didn't know if that would be insulting or taken as trying to infringe on her territory! :) I think I just wanted to know whether my camera is capable of taking a picture that looks like that or not. I guess I didn't realize how much post processing photographers do to their photos. I knew at the time that the background was terrible. I would have chosen a much different setting, but time and the amount of people around kept me from doing what I really wanted! So if I shot RAW, what program to you suggest I use to create something similar to hers? Is there any program that is reasonably priced for an amateur to use? Unfortunately, I certainly can't spend $500 on photoshop. I probably did tweak this pic a little in iPhoto.
Click to expand...
Your D7100 is certainly capable of taking photos of that quality, assuming you do a few things...

1. Attach really GOOD glass. The importance of this simply can not be overstated. The semi-pro you speak of was NOT, most likely, using a Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 to get that shot. My D7100 turns out screaming good shots using the Nikon 85mm and 50mm f/1.8 G lenses for instance. It's also smokes when using the Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 APO EX. I don't know what lens you were using but there is some perspective distortion going on that needs correcting for one thing. Better glass will simply make your life easier when it comes to getting the most out of your shots.

2. Stop for a moment and look around before taking the shot. Pay attention to lighting, background and overall composition. Your semi-pro took the time to pose that shot, then got in close to the subject. This helped isolate her AS the subject and kept the background clean and free of distracting elements. Every photo needs a clear subject; anything else in the frame is an "element". An element does one of two things: it either strengthens your shot, or it weakens it.

3. Learning to do post processing is essential. You can get a copy of Lightroom now for around $100 these days or you can subscribe to Adobe Cloud for $10 a month and get access to both Lightroom and Photoshop. Post processing is where you learn to really take control of your digital photos. I don't know how much post processing was done on your semi-pro's shot, but I'll wager there was some. The skin tones are excellent and that can be tricky to pin down. Regardless, though, my overarching point here is that if you want to maximize what your D7100 can do you're going to need some decent post-processing software. I'm a Photoshop user personally, but Lightroom is just as good and in all honesty, faster and easier to use for 99% of what digital photographers need to do on a daily basis.

...
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
pprivett said:
Thank you all for your quick replies and advice. I wanted to contact the photographer, but didn't know if that would be insulting or taken as trying to infringe on her territory! :) I think I just wanted to know whether my camera is capable of taking a picture that looks like that or not. I guess I didn't realize how much post processing photographers do to their photos. I knew at the time that the background was terrible. I would have chosen a much different setting, but time and the amount of people around kept me from doing what I really wanted! So if I shot RAW, what program to you suggest I use to create something similar to hers? Is there any program that is reasonably priced for an amateur to use? Unfortunately, I certainly can't spend $500 on photoshop. I probably did tweak this pic a little in iPhoto.
Click to expand...

Yes, your camera is quite capable of producing stunning images like the one you posted. But I think the answer you're looking for is in the second part of your affirmation. The other photographer DID take the time to place and select his background, he/she did select a longer lens with a larger aperture.

These are the elements you should be working on. The post processing is just icing on the cake. Just the crop that Don did helped your shot quite a bit. Why didn't you crop off the red dress? It seems to me that what you need is just a little more experience. We see so many people coming to this forum, buying the best camera they can afford but lacking the basic photography knowledge about composition, lighting and exposure.

I hope I don't sound too discouraging because this is certainly not my intent. I'd just wish that you start with the basics before going out to grab every lenses you think you should have to create nice images. Keep looking at other's images, see why some are more pleasing than others, learn to experiment with light, see how it can be different from one day to the next, take pictures, lots and lots of them because what you are looking for can only be acquired by YOUR OWN experience. The magic camera, lens or post processing program won't do that for you.

Keep shooting.
 
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yauman

Senior Member
pprivett said:
Thank you all for your quick replies and advice. I wanted to contact the photographer, but didn't know if that would be insulting or taken as trying to infringe on her territory! :) I think I just wanted to know whether my camera is capable of taking a picture that looks like that or not. I guess I didn't realize how much post processing photographers do to their photos. I knew at the time that the background was terrible. I would have chosen a much different setting, but time and the amount of people around kept me from doing what I really wanted! So if I shot RAW, what program to you suggest I use to create something similar to hers? Is there any program that is reasonably priced for an amateur to use? Unfortunately, I certainly can't spend $500 on photoshop. I probably did tweak this pic a little in iPhoto.
Click to expand...

The answer is definitely yes - and maybe even better. And yes, professional photos are always post processed. Many pro photographers like wedding photographers may not want to or know how to do their own photoshopping and outsource them - I use to work for a couple of event photographer to retouch their images. So if you don't want to do it yourself, find someone to do it for you. If you want to do this semi-seriously, the edit function of iPhoto is NOT enough. If you like iPhoto, you need to upgrade to the next level - get Aperture - it's like the big brother to iPhoto - gives you more control and adjustment but same interface as iPhoto so it's easy to learn for someone with iPhoto experience. However, I would recommend, and other here have that you need to learn at least Lightroom - it's the standard of the industry. And to take editing to the next level, you need Photoshop.

As for your photo, you can do a few things to get the dark background and blurred it when you are taking the picture. You'll need to open up on your aperture to get the shallowest depth of field. Judging from the scene, I say you need to be at F2.8 or F3.5. That would require you to up your shutter speed a lot more - and meter on the whitest part of the woman's arm. The door will be underexposed. If you are using a speed light you can even do better - meter on the door then stop down at least 2-stop ie underexpose 2 or 3 stop then set your speed light to iTTL-B mode and shoot. Only the couple be be lighted properly and the background will be dark.

If you notice in my "fix" I removed the red dress in the lower right corner. In a picture like this where the main subject is very neutral tone, anything that's vivid will draw your attention to - so you need to crop it off. I would also crop off the door handle/lock - it also draws your attention. The focus of the image for a viewer should be on the couple's faces and nothing else.

Hope that helps.
 
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yauman

Senior Member
pprivett said:
Thank you all for your quick replies and advice. I wanted to contact the photographer, but didn't know if that would be insulting or taken as trying to infringe on her territory! :) I think I just wanted to know whether my camera is capable of taking a picture that looks like that or not. I guess I didn't realize how much post processing photographers do to their photos. I knew at the time that the background was terrible. I would have chosen a much different setting, but time and the amount of people around kept me from doing what I really wanted! So if I shot RAW, what program to you suggest I use to create something similar to hers? Is there any program that is reasonably priced for an amateur to use? Unfortunately, I certainly can't spend $500 on photoshop. I probably did tweak this pic a little in iPhoto.
Click to expand...

Here's my tweak with Lightroom 5.3 - door handle removed, red dress removed, background desaturated and unsharpened to deemphasis door. Cropped and vertical aligned (unfortunately not enough pixel to do it properly, his sleeve got clipped!) For the people, exposure taken down 3/4 stop, her skin softened, overall sharpened (.5 pixel radius) . The original was a JPG at 75%, so not a lot of details can be recovered and color balance is limited. I'll have a lot more "room" to manipulate if I have a raw .NEF file.
Couple-2.jpg
 
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pprivett

New member
Thanks again for the replies. I would, of course, cropped out the red dress, etc. I was really just concerned (for the moment, anyway) about the quality of the pictures and what I should have done differently. I used the nikon 85-105 that came with the camera. I also have a 50mm/1.8. Perhaps that would have been a better choice considering the lighting situation? Thanks again. I will definitely check out Lightroom!
 
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bigal1000

Senior Member
Take the camera off P mode,shoot raw and get LR5 that will be the first steps to get started......then get some good glass 85 1.8 35 1.8 kit zooms are not going to cut it....
 
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