Musician Portraits - SMC A100/2.8 Macro

[tobbsman]

I treid to make some portraits this weekend. A good friend of mine , she's musician and plays in the same groupe as me, asked me to do some portraits for her website ...
I tried my best, I am never ever doing portraits

Problem was it was quite late in the afternoon already, bad light, 10 degrees minus ... we went to the botanic garden ...

Set-up: K10D + manual focus SMC A 100mm/2.8 Macro
2 Pentax Flashguns set as slaves, wireless mode. Inside Camera flash as controller flash.
I had no diffusors for the flashguns unfortunately. Due to very low light conditions I had to shoot with quite slow shutter speeds and high ISO to get the background somehow looking natural.























SMC A 100mm/2.8 Macro is sometimes a too sharp lens to make portraits ...
here's a 100% crop:



I am very open for critics and/or advises to do better next time ...


Cheers
Tobias

[Rob Leslie]

I think they are very well done but would benefit from more PP.
Portraits of ladies are always better with a little softening.
I would first reduce the contrast a touch and deal with the highlights then do some selective softening. There are many good portrait PP tutorials on the web and some great books.
Look for the book ‘The Best of Adobe Photoshop’ Bill Hurter for some good tips
Also make some simple modifiers for your flash set up.
As for the lens it is always better to have a sharp lens and add softening than to have a soft lens to start with.

[Attila]

On number #1 no reason to cut top of head it not provide closer portrait just simple missing to me.

#2 I think not the best of her smiles, looks to me a lens test on white teeth

#3 is great

#4 for is lovely well done portrait

I agree with Robert about softer lens for portraits or use very sharp lenses , because eye sharpness is so important and gently PP skin to avoid pure details.

[tobbsman]

Thanks guys for the great suggestions.

@Rob Leslie
I just worked through some portrait tutorials and got some very nice ideas ...
thaks for your comments they were very helpful !!

Cheers
Tobias