Window light portrait

[Mike McCarty]

Mischa,

Thanks for the reply. I think I might agree about the wall behind, she looks a little boxed in from three sides as it is. She needs an escape route.

About the high cheek bones ... Are you saying that they catch too much light?

About that auto ISO ... The way I've always operated was to first set my ISO to the lowest setting - 200, then meter the scene, and through the view finder I will check my shutter speed. If the shutter would drop to around 1/30 to 1/60 then I knew I'd have to start bumping up my ISO. By doing this I was always aware of my quality (ISO) setting. When the ISO got around the 500+ mark I knew I had to make another plan because the quality began to sink at those ISO levels.

When you use auto ISO you pick the minimum shutter speed that you will tolerate (1/60 in this case) and the camera adjusts the ISO up to what ever it needs to be in order to achieve the minimum shutter speed. But what it doesn't show you in the view finder is what that selected ISO is. So I was going merrily along and when I did think to look it was once over 1000. At these levels the color begins to de-saturate and things begin to get noticeably poor. All this of course is operator error. You get excited with the creative and forget the technical.

If your outside I don't think the auto setting would affect much (then why use it at all?) but I don't think I'll do it like this again for marginal lighting. I knew that I was poaching the scene in the hotel and really didn't want to carry my tripod, which would have drawn more attention.

The good thing about these outings with friends is that you can experiment with these matters and not have the weighty pressure to get it perfect.

Here's an outside shot done about 9:00 AM with the sun to our left. I don't like the pose but it does show off her pretty face.