Project 52 by Nicola

[Nicola]

some event pictures from week 22,
3 out of many that made me troubling a lot!

below each one I list what are my deepest doubts,issues; thank you so much for giving your feedback about it and about every other weak point you will (surely) find in them!


in that, I endeavoured to find a good WB (I didn't use gray card in this scenario) because the red-orange brick wall surrounding the bride made an orrible reddish cast. what do you think? take account that the bride's dress wasn't pure white, but a sort of light havana. what about the man in the background? it is not easy to clone it out... but must I?


the focus point isn't on the eye but on the hair of the girl... to recycle bin?


same issue on WB as #1; plus what do you think about the "crop"? this is how I framed the picture at that moment, no more space around: I loose the hedge of the shoe...

thank you very much for viewing!
ciao
nicola

[Geoff F]

With the first one, Nicola, I wouldn't worry too much about the clothing. What matters is the skin tone. If that is correct, and only you know about that, then I would be happy with the result.

I suspect that if you tone down the brightness of the man on the left edge, adjustment layer and mask etc, he won't be too noticeable. Possibly do something similar to the top right window as well.

With the second image, I think that if both of the child's eyes were visible, it would work fine. As it is, I wouldn't ditch it; but I wouldn't place it in the top photo selection.

With the third one, once again, the skin tone is the important item. The side lighting is a problem but I think it still works OK.

My only suggestion for an alternative crop is to crop just below his hands with a 4 x 5 size ratio (approx) which would remove most of those two out of focus girls but concentrate more on the boy's face etc. This would also remove the strong shadow which falls across the lower half of the scene. And the tip of a shoe.

Shooting events as they happen is never easy, so difficult choices always have to be made; both during and after shooting.

[Nicola]

Shooting events as they happen is never easy, so difficult choices always have to be made; both during and after shooting.

indeed!

[Nicola]

still playng with DoF when i can
below a couple of pictures with some issues:

the ambient wsn't confortable, the little wild cat wasn't so kind to feel free with my presence, so I was lying down among bushes, and in this first picture the cat's and my attention was grasped by a mosquito on the leafs. I focused on the mosquito but it flew away quicker than my reaction, so it is missing in this picture.


in the 2nd, the grass in the foreground annoy the eyes from the funny moment...


it is not easy at all to work with this kind of subject trying to capture a not so common picture....
it needs a lot of training... doesn't it?

[Nicola]

on week 24 i was invited to a theater show performed by some of my friends.
this is a amateur company, nothing professional, but they do enjoy what they do and usually represent a couple of shows per year. usually in local\regional church's theatres.
obviously i took my camera with me, since it was (and still is) my first attempt on that subject\location.
it has had an hard work, and I quite failed it. it was an open air theatre, with a mostly black curtain on the sides and background: so no surface to bounce my flash. i tried some direct flash shots but even playing with spot metering and flash FEC i didn't find any good for my light source. too harsh direct light. eventually i turned it off and I shot with ambient light, trying to grasp at my best the mood and the feeling that the scene light delivered.
only at the end I understood that a manual set of my flash gun would be the way to obtain some fill light.
i'm looking forward to try it again with a new show!!
anyway here it's what my efforts produced:


f\2.8 t=1\100 1600 iso manual mode spot metering 100mm no flash



f\2.8 t=1\100 500 iso manual mode spot metering 100mm no flash


f\5.6 t=1\125 400iso manual mode spot metering 252mm flash


f\2.8 t=1\125 400iso manual mode spot metering 100mm flash

a very instructive experience, ah! as you can guess, it was a musical from the novel Pinocchio!
thanks for viewing
C&C welcome!
cheers
nicola

[Geoff F]

Well the flash shots shown here have worked OK.

I had a similar sort of problem a couple of years ago with an amateur fashion show where I was struggling to get acceptable results using the semi auto settings of Tv or Av.

Now, I tend to shoot flash the same way I do with my insect shots. Set the camera manually to suit the scene, but be aware of any limiting factors. Then allow the flash to automatically find it's own output level but tweak the flash compensation as required.

This can be a bit of a struggle and you need to be aware when the lighting requirements keep changing; ie, white potential hot spots etc. But I usually manage it reasonably well with macro shots after the first couple of test shots.

[ucci]

Sorry I am not up to your level of expertise in these latest posts using flash so am not in the position to offer any useful technical comment. But I did enjoy seeing your posts and thought the subjects were well captured. Perhaps I found the woman in #1 tended to distract my eye from the clown. Maybe she should have been sent off for coffee so we could concentrate on how well you have captured the clown?
And the yellow dots on the jaw line of the Lady in #3 I found distracting. But they are all great shots and I really think you have really let their individual personalities shine through. All great captures, can't pick a favourite, except that I keep coming back to #4. Okay, I so I may be old and past it, but I am still a guy who can occasionally remember......

[Nicola]

Well the flash shots shown here have worked OK.

I had a similar sort of problem a couple of years ago with an amateur fashion show where I was struggling to get acceptable results using the semi auto settings of Tv or Av.

Now, I tend to shoot flash the same way I do with my insect shots. Set the camera manually to suit the scene, but be aware of any limiting factors. Then allow the flash to automatically find it's own output level but tweak the flash compensation as required.

This can be a bit of a struggle and you need to be aware when the lighting requirements keep changing; ie, white potential hot spots etc. But I usually manage it reasonably well with macro shots after the first couple of test shots.

thanks Geoff, for the feedback
yes, here the flah worked quite well, since with my 70-300 I was able to get very close to the face and let the spot metering do its job on the face. But there was an other problem with that lens: it was very very hard to follow the characters jumping and dancing and i had to shot a lot of pictures to get one right! anyway, as Ken said, the yellow spots on her face probably come from my flash light reflected by her dress.
most of the time I use flash, I set the camera M mode and control the flash with FEC. the ETTL II works very well in my humble opinion. anyway in that occasion, if in the metering area there was a little of the black background, the flash over exposed the skin tones even if set at -2EV.
thanks again
ciao
N

[Nicola]

Sorry I am not up to your level of expertise in these latest posts using flash so am not in the position to offer any useful technical comment. But I did enjoy seeing your posts and thought the subjects were well captured. Perhaps I found the woman in #1 tended to distract my eye from the clown. Maybe she should have been sent off for coffee so we could concentrate on how well you have captured the clown?
And the yellow dots on the jaw line of the Lady in #3 I found distracting. But they are all great shots and I really think you have really let their individual personalities shine through. All great captures, can't pick a favourite, except that I keep coming back to #4. Okay, I so I may be old and past it, but I am still a guy who can occasionally remember......

i can understand you Ken very well, and you can understand me when i tell you that I've a dozen of her pics...

to be more on topic, thank you very much for the feedback.
about the #1, I agree with you, but I keep her in the frame because for who saw the show (and who performed it) surely remeber that act: the clown (actually he is Pinocchio, a wooden puppet brought to life by the fairy in pic #4) was dramatically crying out his thoughts and feeling about his own past and future life, and it broke the heart of his "mother" (the lady in the background)
#3 I also agree. I try to clone the dots!
thank you very much Ken
ciao
N

[Letrow]

still playng with DoF when i can
below a couple of pictures with some issues:

the ambient wsn't confortable, the little wild cat wasn't so kind to feel free with my presence, so I was lying down among bushes, and in this first picture the cat's and my attention was grasped by a mosquito on the leafs. I focused on the mosquito but it flew away quicker than my reaction, so it is missing in this picture.


in the 2nd, the grass in the foreground annoy the eyes from the funny moment...


it is not easy at all to work with this kind of subject trying to capture a not so common picture....
it needs a lot of training... doesn't it?

A late comment Nicola, but I really like these DOF experiments. For me the first one works best, because there is less distraction from the main subject. Very nice!

[Nicola]

this time, a challenge with myself about how to grasp a good picture in a not so good condition.
the not good condition is one of the less "clear air" sunset I've seen without rain nearby.
IMO, I reached my goal, i like this picture. what's your opinion? please be sincere.
what about the composition? and about the freezed effect on the left and the motion blur on the right?
thank you
Nicola

[FrankMi]

I think I just got wet! LOL!

The action on the left side really grabs my attention but as red objects are also attention grabbers, the serene sky tends to pull my attention away from the action of the water.

The way I look at the scene, I see two compositions here, a up-close action shot and a distant sunset. You could almost square crop each side and get two completely different images. I like both. I'm just not sure they play nicely together in the same sand box.

[ronlane]

I like it. I can see where there could be two pictures here, the left and right. When I clicked on it for a bigger picture, the only things that I noticed were teh eyes going from the water on the left to the sunset on the right.

I would be tempted to clone out the boats so they weren't a distraction to it.

[Nicola]

Thank you Frank, Thank you Ron!
I was imagining that someone would suggest me to crop the picture! and eventually, i must confess, I agree with you!
must clone the ship, true.
tanks!
ciao

[Nicola]

well
these pics are from one of the most important race of my former sport (sea rowing).. quite difficult location, since the sun was sinking behind the race field...


a boat manoeuvers to approach starting line



don't know if the focus point-DoF works here. I wanted to focus the attention to the team who was leading the race...


getting closer to the end

PS don't know on which side of the camera i will be next time...
but in any case I will do better than I've ever done!
many photographers attended this race, just for istance, I found a picture of it on a photography book of Michael Freeman. Some of his are also visible on his website. http://http://www.michaelfreemanphot...=1349124935801

[Donald]

don't know if the focus point-DoF works here. I wanted to focus the attention to the team who was leading the race...

I think that approach does work well. I like this image because it is so full of energy and movement. It captures and conveys the atmosphere of excitement that I think must be part of this event.

[FrankMi]

Nice action shot! Those boats are creating quite a bit of wave action at their bows as they slice through the chop!

[Nicola]

a re-worked version of w25
according to your suggestions! (I hope)

[Nicola]

thank you Donald and frank for your kind words


I 'm glad
cheers
Nicola

[Nicola]

I spent july on the beach during spare time, so I've just a couple of pics...
my camera and my good purpose about photography rested in the box.
here a pic of my nephew, with ambient light.
at least I hurried quite fast to capture that moment...