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[KeyAndFill]

1.8 at 50 mm the DOF is extremely shallow.  At 6 feet you have roughly 4 inches of acceptable sharpness.  So the lens may not be the culprit, just the f/stop at your current focal length and subject distance.  If you had stopped down to f/4 and kept everything else the same you would still have blurred the background and enough room to play with that your subject would have been in better focus.

[Loke]

Thanks! Yes, they are….they’re lounging about  5 ft up ….those fat little things can actually  wiggle their way up those rocks haha. Even though I think mobile phones are getting more advanced they are still far off from competing of course…but I say based on what I’ve seen,  in 5 years we might see them there or at least close. I use my mobile phone if I don’t have my other cams available for spur of the moment shots, good backup.

[Thomas]

@ dont.care

Love your last post, nice to have a sensible discussion with someone about these things  :o)
I do agree somewhat with everything you said in your OP, and judging by your responses you realised I wasn’t trying to be a dick by disagreeing with you which is great. And I totally think using flash for landscape is a good idea, if it work it works. The pier thing shows your creativity and ability to see your surroundings, map out the shot in your head and go do it, excellent stuff. Pushing boundaries and trying new things is a good way to get noticed.

 

One last thing, don’t forget that if we have full time jobs and make money from photography as a small portion of our income, we can still call ourselves “Semi Professional”. I’m trying get things moving here myself but still wouldn’t use the term “professional” anyway. Not because I don’t think I’m good enough, I just think it sounds a bit….pompous perhaps? I prefer to tell people I make photographs or do some photography etc.

I wont say anymore about it now, we’ve said all there is to say, thanks again for the interesting replies  :o)

 

I’m glad you like 1,2 & 4, haha.

@KeyAndFill

I’m still blaming the lens ability at f1.8 as this happened on many more shots then, and since. I focus on one area and it focuses on something else entirely, and as I said, I do know how to focus, lol.  I see your point though, if I had gone to f4 the DOF would have increased and the eyes would likely be in focus as I wanted. I don’t really think I should HAVE to do that though to make my equipment perform as I want it too. I assume that another advantage to more expensive equipment would be not having to worry about your equipment being so unreliable, so to speak. But as you say as long as the result is almost the same (Bokeh if that’s what I’m after) I wont use 1.8 anymore unless I’m shooting very low light and I’ll take some chances with it. Otherwise I think I’ll stick to 2 or 2.8 and above. Would probably be wise to run some test shots, hey what a great suggestion KeyAndFill, I’ll do that soon  :o)  (haha).

[Thomas]

I just read some other posts in the forum and thought it would be funny to mention this here.

The baby shot I posted has a white vignette and I did it knowing full well that it’s a faux pas, lol. BUT, none of you mentioned it and I’m glad, as I didn’t want it to be visible and it obviously worked. As you are all aware, some (a lot I would say) of lenses can/do cause small amount of vignette. This was the case with the baby photo so I just used a white vignette to bring it up a little. Subtlety is key here, something most fauxtogs are not aware of it seems.

[dont.care]

THJ: just because something is considered as ‘fauxtography’, doesn’t necessarily make it so. White vignette is indeed looked upon as taboo.. However, I think it’s rather nice if you can make it blend well. The key to everything is moderation. Most of your ‘fauxtographers’ tend to generally overdo everything.. Instead of a fake white vignette at 0.2 % intensity (example) they’ll crank that shit up to 210% intensity. Subtle changes make a world of difference over all.. Most can’t see the effect in their head and over do everything.. Ultimately, they have no patience nor do they have understanding of creation vs. throwing shit at a wall and hoping it sticks.. Personally, vignette = pen tool/path selection/feather the radius/blend mode.. Or, quick selection with a radial gradient on a new layer and then fill it with whatever color.. I hate so called actions and pre made effect filters.. My photoshop is as naked as a 2 dollar whore on friday night at the local military barracks.. If the shit doesn’t exist, there is no temptation.

“white” is in essence light in photography black is “dark” whereby stating there really is no room for colorful vignettes, i.e. that red green blue yellow shit you see all over facebook.. A white vignette can be made to appear as your photo is glowing.. Rather nice if you do it subtly.. So obviously, if no one mentioned–you didn’t overdo it 😉 But, the black and white can change the mood of a photo in an instant.. White is generally more happy, lighter, “Lifier (new word/Fuller of life)” and dark is moody/drama/dreary however your photo is depicted can be basically changed with 2 colors.. Albeit an over all dark photo would like horrendous with white vignette

 

[Thomas]

@ dont.care

I love that line “My photoshop is as naked as a 2 dollar whore on friday night at the local military barracks”. I LOL’d a bit there, haha.

Personally I don’t own PS (again as I simply cannot afford it and I would need 10 of my current PCs to get it to run) so I use GIMP which is great IMO. I use Lightroom 3 on 100% of my RAW images first and only use GIMP if I have to merge layers etc (you know the score).
I agree with the opinion on presets. They are there in LR but I very, VERY rarely use them. I will do a quick scan if I think something will work with a particular image, if it does, I use it and tweak it as should be done. Other than that I save my own presets which have worked on previous images and try those out but again I always change them from their full preset.
I suppose that’s another thing fauxs do, choose a preset….uh…preset, and whack it on all of their images without changing a damn thing. I can honestly say I have never done that other than in Instagram when I take pictures on my tablet, lol.

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