A try at Black and White

Hello!

Went ahead and tried a Black and White photo of a dog.
I`m kinda new to editing photos, or even taking photos thats not point and shoot in all kinds of auto modes (Learning the ropes in manual atm, Aperture Priority is my favorite tho and was used for this photo) Have been trying Lightroom and I find it ok, a bit much too start with perhaps but learning something everyday

So...would like some input on this photo if possible, quality, composition, BW edit etc.

In advance Thanks!

Chris

Nice photo. The shades of gray in the background are in accordance with the shades of gray of the dog. The bokeh is quite nice. Which lens was that?
Remember: when asking for your colleagues' opinions, you should report the full EXIF...

I find it a little too dark and find we loose detail in the black parts or it's ears and eyes. And I personally would crop it square since I think that the left part of the picture just distracts from the main subject which should be it's face.

I took the liberty of doing a bit of dodging and cropping to show you what I meant. I also did a little sepia toning using color balance. If you don't want me to show you, just let me know and I will remove this post.

Here is the version I could come up with

Hi again,

Sorry for not putting in the exif data, first post timer and plainly forgot...edited and added it under the pic
( Iso 800, f 1,8, 1/1000)
Also put a slight vignette around to make the edges smoother as the right side was almost plain white and overpowering originally.

The relatively high iso is due to dark clouds, think the sun has only been showing itself 3 times since start of december, horrible shooting light Not excpecting much until May, but might get lucky!
@DraganDL : Was using the 50mm AF-S 1.8G, liking it so far, only had it for a week or so
@Marcel : No problem,I wouldn`t post here if I couldn`t handle someone else tweeking the photos I didn`t crop that much down because I thought it would make the eyes a little less clear as it seems the focus is just a cm or two in front of them(imo), but looking at it with a little sepia added it looks good, angling towards your version

Chris

With using the 50mm you don't need shutter speed that high, so you could have dropped the ISO down and been fine (unless you needed it because the dog kept moving). My only real criticism is that focus is on the nose and not the eyes, and sharp eyes are critical in any portrait. Perhaps applying a little Unsharp Mask will do the trick (if you're in LR, start out with Amount around 75, Radius at 1.3, and then while holding the alt/option key down and slide the Masking slider to the right until you just see the outlines in the face and eyes).

I might have also considered going light on the vignette instead of dark, which may have lessened any distraction caused by the background. FYI, given the off-center nature of the face I did not use the vignette tool in LR but instead used the Radial Filter in LR5, inverting it to effect the outside areas, made an ellipse around the face and then lightened everything outside. It's a great tool for creating off-center, and even multiple vignettes, around the subject of your photo.

@BackdoorHippie : Thanks for taking a look, Will find myself a Lightroom tutorial of some sort, alot to learn there thats for sure, but realizing it`s quite the powerfull tool

Thanks for all the feedback guys