Next lens (28mm f/1.8 or 50mm f/1.4) - Page 4

since we are having so much fun arguing about the 50/1.4 vs 50/1.8, shoot against more highlights in the background and you will see the problem with having 5 blade aperture. even on images in your set you start seeing some of the harsh highlights around the bokeh.

but for 100 bucks it cant be beat tho.

This poster... read it. (in fairness things are mostly okay at this point, but please try to keep things at least relatively civil).

Can;t we agree that bokeh or rather background blur is personal preference? Some people like the hexagonal painting type of bokeh that the lower blade lenses give out while some like the smoother finer background blur or rather "bokeh" that higher blade apertures give out. Again, its personal preference.

On a picture like this one I prefer the hexagonal almost oil painting like bokeh that you can see towards the highlights on the bottom and upper left. These would have turned out to be very smooth with a lens with more aperture blades which still might look good too, its personal preference.



Again, you seem to contradict yourself. You said that it's not worth lugging around a light stand & umbrella yet you should know that lighting is the key to excellent photographs. Also, whats so "wasting time" about using a crop factor camera? Crop factor cameras have their benefit and you cant really tell the difference between the two unless you're making very, very, large prints. I still know professionals that shoot weddings with 6mp crop factor DSLR's and they're some of the best wedding photographers out there. MP or crop is such a tiny factor when it's importance is compared to lighting, back drop, the story you're trying to convey, and everything else that is involved with taking a picture.
Edited by Mwarren - 9/25/12 at 1:55pm

honestly its not worth lugging around tons of lights for a photoshoot unless you MUST have them because you need a certain look. the best portraits i have ever seen were taken with natural light and a reflector and some with no reflector and just searching for where the light hits the model just the right way. that is ALL you need for a professional portrait. but saying that bokeh is personal preference is true but honesty rarely does anyone want bokeh that isnt nice and smooth. harsh bokeh like that of the 50 1.8 is very distracting and draws attention away from the person in the picture. also even lighting on the person is helpful i find your recent photo posted very distracting not only from the bokeh in the bottom left but because on my screen it looks like you cooked the detail out of the left side of her face (right side of the image) with overexposing and the boring flat lighting as well. just my observation on that image.

not trying to be rude. just constructive criticism but from what your image look like on my screen you need to work on exposure and lighting in some of these

as far as laziness and carrying around the extra equipment i can tell you that a true professional has no problem carrying around 5X more gear than needed. while video does not apply i can tell you that for a simple video field shoot we pack about 100Lbs worth of gear. mind you the cameras+lenses are about 30 Lbs with extra batteries. we go with usually about 7 light panels. normally only use 2 at most just to bring up the ambient light at a location for exposure and just one key light to keep it natural and flattering rather than light an interview subject with glamor lighting. i can tell you that any professional will agree in saying that how much extra gear they bring is never an issue vs having the best quality gear to produce the highest quality image possible. so being ok with a cheap lens and cheap lights is your personal preference but suggesting to someone that a $100 lens (which is great quality btw) will produce fantastic results is poor advice even coming from someone that looks like they are still learning lighting. i am by no means an expert on light but the quality of your light is just as important as the lens and camera. using a cheap lens with expensive lighting will produce a blah image just like a expensive lens with cheap quality lights will also produce a blah image.

professionals shooting weddings with a 6MP camera isnt amazing. if they are consumer grade beginner 6MP cameras and the images are mindblowing then id be impressed. my friend that does professional sports photography works for sports illustrated and presswire and as a photojournalist he uses a 12MP camera that is about 5 years old, why does he use it? because (1) its a professional grade nikon D3 and (2) none of his shots are printed out in large formats. so using a wedding photog with a 6MP camera isnt that impressive because its very common. but comparing yourself to someone else that does a different type of professional work isnt very effective

keep that in mind rather than saying that what you use is great quality when its not. what you have in your setup is excellent for beginners but is by no means ideal for professional work. just saying...
Edited by Conspiracy - 9/25/12 at 2:18pm

I have yet to meet anyone that enjoys pentagons in their out-of-focus areas. If you prefer it, that's completely fine -- though if you're shooting portraits for pay, you might want to put that sort of feeling aside as more people prefer a smooth background than hard-edged shapes.

For someone harping on lighting, you seem to have missed the execution by a mile. That's terribly over-exposed in key areas, you could have avoided this by using an incident meter to measure the EV delta between the sides of her face.

Of course, I don't disagree. But strobes and studio lights aren't useful in a ton of applications unless your primary focus is on portraiture. Yours seems to be, but try and think outside of your own preferences and gear selection when making suggestions.

Professionals use larger formats in order to make large prints or achieve a certain aesthetic. There's nothing wrong with crop-sensor cameras inherently, but pros who work for pay will choose a full-frame or medium-format as their primary tool 99 times out of 100.

Again, talent will supercede the tool most of the time. When it comes to enlargements and critical things like color depth, cropping ability and enhancing DoF, larger formats are key.

well photography is art so you are correct it is personal preference. but that also means there is no reason to critique someones framing or even exposure since they can simply argue "I like it over/under exposed and not framed".

back on the topic of bokeh, its generally accepted that buttery smooth bokeh defines good bokeh. of course some people like extremely hard and weird bokeh (reflex mirrors comes to mind). in your attached picture the bokeh i find distracting, which i feel subtracts from your main subject. but that is because im nitpicking right now regarding bokeh, what i am more distracted by is the highlight right above her forehead.....
Edited by mz-n10 - 9/25/12 at 2:31pm

I disagree with both claims on the picture being over exposed. I didn't mention this but my girlfriend is very light skinned and has porcelain skin. If I raised my aperture to cut down on the flash's power than her skin wouldn't appear as vibrant. If her face was over exposed you wouldn't be able to make out her eyes, teeth, eyebrows or so forth. This is common knowledge though and I'd expect you guys to already know this when working with models that have different skin tones.

Also, this whole "large format full frame is the way to go" mentality on this forum doesn't surprise me as a lot of people blow their money on expensive computer equipment to overclock and do benchmarks with. I'm talking about actual working pros that use low megapixel camera just because they completely understand every aspect of that camera. Full frame is extremely expensive and there are drawbacks to full frame. Unless you're shooting 10K wedding's where they want huge prints I don't see the need in full frame as I even now a lot of Nikon guys that have 20mp camera but they shoot with 10mp mode since they're not making huge prints with their jobs.

Also, who needs a light meter when you have a histogram, most of the pros that I've seen videos that talk about manual flash don't use light meters, they set the flash to say medium to high power and use shutter to adjust the ambient and aperture to control the flash, just use the histogram and your eyes to determine if your exposure is off and my exposure was on point for that pic as if the flash was any less dominant the sky would have taken over as its hard to overpower the sun with one speed lite and an umbrella so I think the pic is beautiful for what it is, and yes some people might not like hexagon bokeh but if they're really that hard set on background than you can apply Gaussian blur in photoshop to smooth the back ground out......not hard at all.

I also understand that a lot of portraits can be done with just a reflector but I'm a one man band, using a reflector requires an assistant and shooting during the golden hour and getting the angles just right. With speedlights you can shoot whenever and don't have just an hour or two window for pictures and you don't need an assistant.

I also find it funny how I'm the only one posting pictures that I've taken yet everyone else is quiet and just leaves comments without posting any of their own work for critique.

i dont know what pros you are talking about but histograms is only a guide and is not the definitive tool to judge exposure. a light meter is the tell all truth about what your exposure is and even more specifically is the correct light meter as there are different types. i know way too many people that only use the histogram to judge exposure for video and the complain when they lose detail in the shadows and highlights because their exposure is wrong. it also should not mater that she is very pale. you look to be very close to losing detail in her face not to mention that you missed focus as her hair is in focus rather than her face but thats not as important.

instead of assuming that the only way to expose is to stop down your aperture consider the fact that if you backed the light away from her just even like 6 inches then that side of her face would be less over cooked by the light. the method you described as how to light a subject is honestly not that great and i would be shocked if i ever heard a professional say that was how to expose an image properly.

also using a reflector does not mean you can only shoot during golden hour. not sure why you think that. the only time of day a reflector is not effective is high noon when the sun is directly over head and the few hours before and after the sun is directly above your subject.

also im not posting anything because i am not a portrait photographer or a photographer for that matter. i shoot for fun. if you want to see some of my work with video and lighting i worked on this show for season 5 and 6(not yet aired) so watch a few episodes. we use simple lighting and do it well. http://www.gpb.org/georgia-traveler

here is one of my portraits i have done if you just must see other peoples stuff because you think we just only critiquing your stuff. feel free to critique my shot. i will give no information about my level of knowledge of photography or lighting

the setup for this shot is canon 7D and 70-200 f2.8. all natural light no reflector.

Edited by Conspiracy - 9/25/12 at 3:25pm

i have a quite a bit of experience shooting fair skinned models and while what you said is true, you could have moved the flash off camera or fixed eyes, teeth, etc in post. I have not pixelpeeped and already can tell that her face has little to no details (maybe you posted it?) and looks like its out of focus.


printing large is not the only reasons to shoot fullframe (cameras like nikon d3s or d700 only has 12mp i wouldnt consider large prints a reason for these cameras). DOF, FOV, lower noise, higher DR, etc are also reasons why to use a FF vs APS-C.

FYI. there are no 20mp nikon cameras (there is a 24mp d3x)

histogram gives you exposures for the whole scene not a certain point in space. assuming what you said about histograms we all have LCD screens why even bother with histograms, just look on the back of your camera and see how many EV you need to adjust.

OP asked about lenses not show me your pictures.....no reason to post images unless you have direct comparison between the lenses.
Edited by mz-n10 - 9/25/12 at 3:42pm