Eyes

Ciara's Eye (Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Sigma 105mm EX DG Macro lens, ISO 400, 1/80 sec at f/8.0, LED Macro Ring Flash and fill lights, Handheld)

This afternoon, by way of a little studio lighting and portraiture practice I set up the guest room with my lights and prevailed upon my youngest to sit for me.  I wanted to focus in close on the eyes as opposed to taking normal full-head portraits.  The shot above is the best of the lot I think.  This was taken with my Sigma 105mm prime lens using a LED macro ring flash, a fill light and a backlight.  I was in close for this shot so despite using f/8 there is still a very shallow depth of field.  This effectively isolates the eye and lashes from the rest of her face.

The second shot was taken using the same set up but I replaced the ring flash with my Speedlight and a diffuser.  I was not in quite so close this time so opted for a wider aperture to retain the shallow depth of field.

Ciara (Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Sigma 105mm EX DG Macro lens, ISO 800, 1/125 sec at f/4.5, Speedlight Flash and fill lights, Handheld)

Finally I have selected a straight portrait.  Maybe not the best shot but I like it as I think it has caught Ciara just being herself and not thinking too much about the camera.  I should probably have increased the ISO to get a faster shutterspeed but it worked reasonably well.  I opened up the aperture as far as it would go to try to retain the shallow depth of field and separate Ciara from the backdrop.

I am still struggling to work out the settings on my various flashes and how to get them to work properly with the camera, but hopefully the HNC course I am doing will help with this.  At the moment I am still resorting to trial and error.

Ciara On the Phone (Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Sigma 105mm EX DG Macro lens, ISO 100, 1/30 sec at f/2.8, Speedlight with diffuser and fill lights, handheld)