I took this image yesterday and it is sort of what I wanted... hand and butterfly in focus, Lilly not. My problem is that it has a huge ugly shadow and I wondered if I could get some suggestions on processing that could improve the image and some tips for doing it right next time.
Hope it's ok that I played with it a bit.
I set the black so it would eliminate the shadow and dark gray on the right. Cloned out her bit of red hair on the right also as it looked a bit odd after darkening that side of the pic.
Adjusted warmth to remove bluish color cast.
Slightly sharpened the butterfly.
For the future - HIgher ISO so you wouldn't have to use flash. A better lit area also so you wouldn't have to use flash. Or, try dialing flash exposure compensation down so it's not as powerful.
ETA- Might have gone with a bit larger aperture too. Looks like you were at f8.
I've bounced the built-in flash of a camera by shaping some aluminium foil to reflect the light towards the ceiling instead of the subject and taping it to the pop-up flash.
In a small room with a low ceiling and a close subject, it can work surprisingly well. You might have to raise the ISO a little, but nowhere near as much as without flash.
Your aperture is a huge factor. It was set at f/8, when you should really get it open as much as possible - not sure of your lenses, but to create that effect, you would need something like f/1.4 - f/2.2 or so. Also, having her hold her hand further away from herself and you standing as close as you can get would have helped achieve the affect. Natural light is always better (in my opinion) too!
@mikehamm That is so much better!!! Thanks so much. @snippets@bradleynovak@jcambridge@abirkill
Thanks for the tips. This place was really crowded yesterday and it was hard to stop and focus on each shot like I wanted to. When you have a very high ceiling can you still bounce the flash off it? And yes it is an on camera flash. My Speedlite flash made a huge loud pop sound when I took the first shot yesterday and no longer works :(
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If you want to minimize shadows, you can either use a larger light source (larger the source=softer the shadows)
or you can "fill" in the shadows by "bouncing" the light with something that is white, say a large piece of white Styrofoam.
Hope this helps! :)
I set the black so it would eliminate the shadow and dark gray on the right. Cloned out her bit of red hair on the right also as it looked a bit odd after darkening that side of the pic.
Adjusted warmth to remove bluish color cast.
Slightly sharpened the butterfly.
For the future - HIgher ISO so you wouldn't have to use flash. A better lit area also so you wouldn't have to use flash. Or, try dialing flash exposure compensation down so it's not as powerful.
ETA- Might have gone with a bit larger aperture too. Looks like you were at f8.
In a small room with a low ceiling and a close subject, it can work surprisingly well. You might have to raise the ISO a little, but nowhere near as much as without flash.
@snippets @bradleynovak @jcambridge @abirkill
Thanks for the tips. This place was really crowded yesterday and it was hard to stop and focus on each shot like I wanted to. When you have a very high ceiling can you still bounce the flash off it? And yes it is an on camera flash. My Speedlite flash made a huge loud pop sound when I took the first shot yesterday and no longer works :(