These two "portraits" of Beamer resulted from taking shots in 2 different indoor lighting conditions--ambient light behind the photographer and ambient light behind the subject. I used all four of the camera's flash modes (Auto Flash, Fill Flash, Red Eye Reduction and Flash Off). These two images were the ones I liked best from the group of 8 images. I am actually very pleased with the results. This is the first time I have tried to set up indoor shots in "portrait" style and I learned a great deal from this exercise. Beamer moved several times while I was shooting and, with the flash off, this resulted in 2 blurry shots. With the flash on, I was able to get focused shots even when there was movement.
This camera does not have any manual settings for focus, aperture, shutter speed or white balance so I had to rely on the auto settings. I was able to work with four flash modes and with the ambient room lighting. I didn't manage to get even one red eye shot during this entire shoot (go figure?) but my experience is that the Red Eye Reduction flash mode is way too slow to use on animals. When I attempted it, Beamer moved by the time the shot went off. This might be useable for people but I prefer to fix red eye problems with software.
I would like to learn more about using Fill Cards (as mentioned in the text) to eliminate the harsh shadows that are seen behind the dog in the first shot. Specifically where do you place these cards and how big are they? Fill Flash didn't seem to do much in this case.
Disclaimer: In the interest of quality, these images have not been compressed and are not optimized for use on the web. In other words, they're way too big!
Daylight from glass door behind me |
Head shot cropped from photo at left. HMS adjusted in PSP using the Linear method Highlight=60 Midtone=48 Shadow=0 Clone Brush used to remove slight defects in background |
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 Daylight from glass door behind me Gamma adjusted in PSP 1.30 |
 Head shot cropped from photo at left HMS adjusted in PSP using the Linear method Highlight=48 Midtone=48 Shadow=0 Clone Brush used to remove slight defects in background |
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