First Silhouette Attempt

[Danny]

I took my goddaughter to the library to enjoy some Christmas activities they had up there and when she was drawing, I felt compelled to try a silhouette because of the way the lighting was hitting her. I took this with my Nikon L810. Shutter speed 1/60 and aperture like 3 something if I remember correctly. ISO 100 and seeing as how I don't own Photoshop, it was edited using the PicsPlayPro app. It's not a powerhouse but I do get access to curves, levels, etc.

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[cbg]

I like the silhoutte, but for me the cluttered background really distracts from the image. Also, I'm not sure if it's my monitor, but the entire image looks a little soft and slightly out of focus, suggesting that you may have needed a little higher shutter speed.

 

[Danny]

I like the silhoutte, but for me the cluttered background really distracts from the image. Also, I'm not sure if it's my monitor, but the entire image looks a little soft and slightly out of focus, suggesting that you may have needed a little higher shutter speed.

No you're right. It was accidentally taken on the 8mp setting as opposed to the 16 megapixel setting so it obviously lost some sharpness. Sadly, my camera isn't a dslr nor does it have a manual mode. It was on program mode so I was basically at the mercy of the cameras decision. Thanks for the feedback :thumbup:

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[BackdoorArts]

This is one of those shots that could benefit greatly from the narrow depth of field that you just can't get with that camera. The clutter mentioned in cbg's post wouldn't look half bad as blurred color in the background.

 

[Danny]

This is one of those shots that could benefit greatly from the narrow depth of field that you just can't get with that camera. The clutter mentioned in cbg's post wouldn't look half bad as blurred color in the background.

I can fix that with Post processing right?

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[BackdoorArts]

Best you could do would be to apply some level of blur to the window areas, but it would be tough to get it to look natural given the plant immediately outside. The "just out of focus" plants in front of the well bokeh'd buildings in the background would be much harder to replicate. You'd also want the front edge of papers less crisp. Everything would draw your eye to the girl since she's be the one thing in focus - along with the crayons.

 

[Dave_W]

No you're right. It was accidentally taken on the 8mp setting as opposed to the 16 megapixel setting so it obviously lost some sharpness.

The sharpness, or lack thereof, is not a function of megapixels, it's due to the fact your lens was focused on the scene outside the window rather than the girl on the table. For really good silhouettes, consider where they come from. Back before cameras, people of modest means would hire an artist to cut a silhouette of their loved ones out of black paper and then glue it to a sheet of white paper leaving nothing in the background to distract the eye. Consider re-composing this image so that the background is less cluttered. Then set your light meter on "spot" rather than matrix and meter for the lightest portion of your image so that the silhouette is completely under exposed, similar to what you've achieved in the above image. But the key is to insure your focus is set on the underexposed silhouette rather than the metered background. You can use focus lock to achieve this, as well as other possible ways.

Here's an example where I metered for the lightest section of my image so that the darkest sections would be under exposed. It's not so much a true silhouette, per se, but has that same over and under exposed effect.

 

[Danny]

Wow. I never thought of it like that. Thank you very much Dave

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