Right up front, let's get something straight: I'm a rank amateur when it
comes to digital photography. I thought I was pretty good, but not the case.
There is nothing more frustrating than to have your photographic chops
chopped off at the knees.
My usual tools of choice when doing portraiture is the Olympus E-1 or Portra
160NC in an OM. Both technologies/mediums are simply outstanding for
photographing people. Unfortunately, I've learned that I use said
technologies as a crutch.
I've done a number of portrait sessions now with the DMC-L1. The camera is
really not that good for the task. There is a very slight shutter-delay and
the viewfinder is simply gutwrench. However, the image-quality is very good.
Or is it?
Skintones simply stink. Once I get the skin looking healthy, the rest of the
colors in the image go to pot. Lighting that is perfect for the E-1 or
Portra films causes nasty burned highlights. Shadows that normally remain
neutral take on different colorcasts. It's not actually very far off, but
I'm not used to this problem. I'm used to my E-1 files being essentially
perfect right out of the camera. These I have to work for. Instead of a
gentle tweak, these require wholesale adjustments.
I sent off several raw files to other photographers who shoot other
brands/models. What each one said was "this was normal". One guy told me
that my lighting is all wrong and he immediately identified specific areas
of adjustment I needed to make. Basically, I've gotten lazy and just been
winging it just because I could!
So, now I've got this portrait session which I'm stumped on. The baby pics
are safe--those are just one type of skintone to correct, but the family
shots (mother, father, 6mo old baby) are a disaster because all three have
different skin characteristics. I'm at the point where I'll just do my basic
editing on them and ship them off to Millers to color correct.
Like I said--it's not off by far, but correcting it is beyond my skillset.
The E-1 lives to see another day!
AG
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