Young woman

[Jean Kelly]

A friend of mine stopped over tonight after attending a wedding. I finally got a tripod, so she became my impromtu model. We threw this together and I'm wondering what you think. She has a beautiful profile so I decided to highlight that. There is a mix of daylight, flourescent, and incandescent light, and I corrected the color slightly in my photo program. I've been learning much more about the settings on my camera, and am now in totally manual mode!

Jean

[Michele Rushworth]

Very nice. Looks like there's still too much red in the skintones, though, so you probably need to do a bit more color correction.

You set yourself up with a difficult task by having natural light, incandescent and fluorescent going at one time. Why not just the natural light?

[Jean Kelly]

Hi Michele, I added the extra light because it was 7:30 pm and even with a south facing window the light was very low. I'll come back on later with more explanation (camera settings etc), I've got to go to a graduation. Be back later.

Jean

[Jean Kelly]

Hello again,

I've removed red and more yellow from the original. On my screen the background matches perfectly at this point, a silvery gray green. Since this was really "on the fly", I neglected to turn off the small incandescent light in the room. That is the only reason it's there, no planning or set up. The flourescent was to her left and pointed away from her. It's a small bulb on a pole lamp. I haven't set up the Chroma 50 bulbs yet in the dining room. Slowly the dining room is becoming more of a studio than anything else, it's a good thing my husband loves me.

I was just delighted that I was finally able to get a decent photo without using any automatic features on the camera. This has been a long intense learning experience with thousands of deleted photos. I'm considering using this for a painting or should I just do it again with better planning (no stray light bulbs)?

Jean

[Michele Rushworth]

Go ahead and paint it as is. I really couldn't tell there were other light sources. Have fun!

[Jean Kelly]

Thanks Michele, I have close-ups of her face and hands (minus the watch). She's also available for sittings, so this may be a go at some point. The tripod has helped tremendously as I have shaky hands. Shutter was set at 1 and f-stop was 5.3, ISO 50. I've found that there is no pixelation or little spots of color (?) at the lower ISO (sensitivity). I was about 14' away from her and focused on her midpoint (not the face) so no distortion! Thank you Sharon for that tip long ago. And in the high res image I can see every eyelash. My friend is excited as this shows a side of her that is rarely seen, she looks regal. It's kind of a "fantasy" portrait.

Jean