Loving the XT1, espcially the 56mm 1.2 lens

apercele79 · Jul 3, 2014

I'm a total newbie but I must say the 56mm 1.2 lens is awesome. I paid a nice chunk of change for it but to be able to take quality pics of my little princess I'm so glad I did it. I need to tone down the saturation of my pics in LR5 (especially the pic on the golf course) but I'm certainly starting to get the hang of this lol

please criticize the hell outta me, I'm certainly not here fishing for complients. I want to improve and I can only do so through your critiques

Thanks!

Chrichey · Jul 3, 2014

Nice pictures. The 56mm 1.2 is legendry if you ask me. Mine is incredibly sharp, focuses in a snap and renders beautifully, great at any aperture including 1.2 if you can nail your focus.

StevenScholten · Jul 3, 2014

Nice shots, but you should take advantage of that 1.2 aperture more to blur the background. and get nice and close with that pretty girl

StevenScholten · Jul 3, 2014

Oh Yeah and shoot RAW. you can add the nice fujicolors in lightroom later (Camera Callibration).

apercele79 · Jul 3, 2014

Yup, I have recently switched from JPEGs to RAW and I'm glad I did. LR5 gives me so much more freedom/options with the RAW 8images

J Frank Parnell · Jul 3, 2014

Nice shots! Although I don't think the aperture and shutter speed are optimal on the golf course shot. At f/20 the photo is definitely being softened by diffraction. Stick to f/11 or wider to avoid.

apercele79 · Jul 3, 2014

J Frank Parnell said:
Nice shots! Although I don't think the aperture and shutter speed are optimal on the golf course shot. At f/20 the photo is definitely being softened by diffraction. Stick to f/11 or wider to avoid.

Bingo!!! that's what I'm looking for, I am aware I'm making basic mistakes and I would like to eliminate them in the future!!!

Thanks Frank!!!

apercele79 · Jul 3, 2014

J Frank Parnell said:
Nice shots! Although I don't think the aperture and shutter speed are optimal on the golf course shot. At f/20 the photo is definitely being softened by diffraction. Stick to f/11 or wider to avoid.

Let me ask you a question Frank, in what scenario do u go past f11? My thinking was that I did not want any depth of field on the golf course, therefore I set my aperture to the max. Should I stick to f11 in the future or are there scenarios when f20 would actually work?

deednets · Jul 3, 2014

apercele79 said:
I'm a total newbie but I must say the 56mm 1.2 lens is awesome. I paid a nice chunk of change for it but to be able to take quality pics of my little princess I'm so glad I did it. I need to tone down the saturation of my pics in LR5 (especially the pic on the golf course) but I'm certainly starting to get the hang of this lol

please criticize the hell outta me, I'm certainly not here fishing for complients. I want to improve and I can only do so through your critiques

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing! I had a look at your photos and find the street picture with the bubbles excellent! Your photos with the 56 need to be much tighter for my personal taste and the hands/feet etc possibly more important that a palm tree.

This one here has a lot of dead space above the head but the arms are chopped off. Pleasing bokeh in the background, but I thought that your daughter was the most important here.

This one I found difficult to get the feet of that statue on the right out of the picture, maybe better to go closer and frame her much, much tighter.

These 2 could have stood much closer together and the background could have been much less busy -or for that matter, if you get much closer you could have "blurred out" the background.

Why not try to get REAL close?? Your daughter is special to you clearly and the Fujis not particularely frightening, quite friendly little cameras, and maybe take some series where you set the focus point on the closest eye (from the camera) because focussing gets a bit more critical when you get closer ...

I use the 56 a lot in the studio theses days and find it is capable of incredibly detailed images without being overly sharp ...

Here is one I took a couple of days ago, so you can see what your camera is capable of when you get real close. Not trying to be an ar** here just trying to show you what the lens can do regarding resolution etc. In terms of "catching the moment" I find your street-bubble-shot much better than the portrait, so please just look at it from the technical point ok? Others will possibly have other ideas regarding the lens, but for yourself I would suggest that a new lens is like riding a motorbike, it needs some time and practise to get used to it, regardless of how much experience you have.

When uploading images via dpreview the images always seem to lose detail, so on my screen the image is actually quite a bit sharper than on the dpreview page ...

Cheers

Deed

apercele79 · Jul 3, 2014

Phenomenal piece of advice deednets, thanks a lot, I will make sure to follow it! your pic is super clear!!!!

J Frank Parnell · Jul 3, 2014

apercele79 said:
J Frank Parnell said:

Nice shots! Although I don't think the aperture and shutter speed are optimal on the golf course shot. At f/20 the photo is definitely being softened by diffraction. Stick to f/11 or wider to avoid.

Click to expand...

Let me ask you a question Frank, in what scenario do u go past f11? My thinking was that I did not want any depth of field on the golf course, therefore I set my aperture to the max. Should I stick to f11 in the future or are there scenarios when f20 would actually work?

The problem is that you wanted the background to remain in focus but the small aperture actually worked against that by introducing diffraction which reduced the photo's overall sharpness. Also, f/20 has resulted in a 1/30 shutter speed. Now that should be sufficient while shooting at 18mm but with poor camera holding technique could definitely cause some blur from camera movement. Why not give yourself some leeway? At f/11 the shutter speed would've been around 1/120 which would've removed camera motion from the equation. And I think the background would've looked fine.

I doubt I would ever use f/20 in that type of situation. There is no "right" answer. Others may disagree.

Also, since you are using Lightroom, try adding some + with the Shadows slider to lighten the kids' faces on that shot.

apercele79 · Jul 3, 2014

J Frank Parnell said:
apercele79 said:

J Frank Parnell said:

Nice shots! Although I don't think the aperture and shutter speed are optimal on the golf course shot. At f/20 the photo is definitely being softened by diffraction. Stick to f/11 or wider to avoid.

Click to expand...

Let me ask you a question Frank, in what scenario do u go past f11? My thinking was that I did not want any depth of field on the golf course, therefore I set my aperture to the max. Should I stick to f11 in the future or are there scenarios when f20 would actually work?

Click to expand...

The problem is that you wanted the background to remain in focus but the small aperture actually worked against that by introducing diffraction which reduced the photo's overall sharpness. Also, f/20 has resulted in a 1/30 shutter speed. Now that should be sufficient while shooting at 18mm but with poor camera holding technique could definitely cause some blur from camera movement. Why not give yourself some leeway? At f/11 the shutter speed would've been around 1/120 which would've removed camera motion from the equation. And I think the background would've looked fine.

I doubt I would ever use f/20 in that type of situation. There is no "right" answer. Others may disagree.

Also, since you are using Lightroom, try adding some + with the Shadows slider to lighten the kids' faces on that shot.

Got it, coming in loud and clear

Gloomy1 · Jul 3, 2014

Advice

1.Try portrait format sometimes when it is more appropriate and portraits of people quite often better in portrait format.

2. Get in closer, most of your shots have too much background which adds little or nothing, the exception to this would be if the background tells you something about the picture e.g. where it was shot, who was there. When shooting at a famous location it is usually better for the background to give the viewer a clue as to where the shot was taken.

3. Look around the subject of the photograph and ensure that any potential distracting elements are not sticking out behind/ above the subject e.g. roses or palm trees. These problems can usually be sorted by moving a few feet or shooting higher or lower but you need to be aware that you need to look for this.

4. Try not to cut people off at the wrong point e.g missing arms/ legs/ feet/ tops of heads.

5. Try using wider apertures to blur the background somewhat, this will allow the subject to stand out more and not make the background as distracting but still does not rule out looking for background distractions.

I hope this helps. This list comes from the mistakes that I regularly make and all to often see others make too.

Ken

Jim Cassatt · Jul 3, 2014

You have received a lot of good advice about filling the frame. Just as an example, in the Universal Studio picture, you obviously want to convey the idea that the beautiful young lady is enjoying herself on vacation. So it is appropriate to include some of the Universal Studio sign. However, the people on the left are distracting. Either crop them out or change your angle. Also the guy in the background behind the fountain is distracting. Just wait until the background clears, or if you are using Photoshop, content aware fill will probably take him out just fine..

In the golf course shot, you have the right idea. Back lighting produces a nice accent on the hair. However, you need to get a lot closer. You also have to figure out some way to get more light on the faces. One way is to use EC to increase the exposure. The problem is that you then over expose the background. You can also pop up your flash. That works, but you have to watch your shutter speed (grr no high speed sync on any Fuji flash). Or if you use Lightroom, just bring up the shadows

BTW, I am jealous. You have a beautiful model who obviously loves being in front of the camera. Take advantage while she is young

.

DVT80111 · Jul 3, 2014

You are doing great as a newbie, this will give help a lot.

Don't forget to pause, look, and think.

howardfuhrman · Jul 3, 2014

These all are keepers and are very nice. I can see why you like your setup.

deednets · Jul 4, 2014

howardfuhrman said:
These all are keepers and are very nice. I can see why you like your setup.

Robert Garcia NYC · Jul 5, 2014

Such a cute child

Very nice pictures. I would consider maybe processing in Silkypix first then go to lightroom for treatment though. They look a bit like like an oil painting as is and lacking micro contrast.

PDine · Jul 7, 2014

Some nice pictures there. You have caught the kids having fun, with genuine smiles on their faces. Your photos will never be boring if this is the case.
Only suggestion I have is that the golf course photo (and to a lesser degree the fountain photo) would have benefited from the use of fill flash. In the case of the golf course photo though, this would have needed you to shoot at the cameras x-sync speed and therefore set aperture accordingly. It also might have required a more powerful flash than the one that comes with the camera.

Terry Breedlove · Jul 7, 2014

That is a beautiful lens. That one plus the 24 mm f 1.4 and I would be very happy.

Loving the XT1, espcially the 56mm 1.2 lens

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