Critique and helpful comments about first shots with D80.

[carlcmc]

I went and spent entirely too much money last night and bought the Nikon D80. It came with a 18-135mm lens.

After dark tonight, I set up in the bedroom which has a white wall. I turned on all the lights, i brought in 2 floor standing lights to post on each side and shine and used the flash at 1/16th through a diffuser.

Here is a shot of my son. I photoshopped the follow - 1) levels adjustment 2)selected the skin and did a selective blur on it to smooth slightly.

Focal Length 135mm

F/5.6

1/40 sec

ISO-800

Flash at 1/16 through a diffuser

2 side lights.

Here are my thoughts, I thought that at the far end of the zoom (the 135 in this case) that the vignetting was supposed to be minimized? It seems pretty noticeable to me.

Number 2, how does one correct this on camera or in photoshop in an efficient manner?

When you take portraits, if you had a 18-135mm lens, what would be your approach and setup? (btw i had it tripod mounted.)

hosted on my flickr account

[Steve Foss]

Carl, it's only too much money if you can't afford it.

Your techs all look fine.

Just because full focal length extension minimizes vignetting doesn't mean there is none. I don't know that lens, so I don't know how prone to vignetting it is. Check online reviews of the lens to see what others have found.

As for correcting it, Photoshop CS and CS2 have vignetting controls, but only for RAW images. When opening a RAW image in those programs, when it pops up on the preview screen you can click on the "lens" option and control vignetting before opening the image.

Otherwise, you have to compose more loosely so you can crop out the vignetting or get a higher quality lens with less or no vignetting.

As for my approach, it is dictated by circumstance and the client. My instinctive preference is to shoot portrait clients in their natural surroundings doing what they normally do. I am allergic to studio environments. When clients ask me for studio portraits, I kindly tell them my philosophy and refer them to a couple other very inspired studio portraiture photographers I know.

Sometimes environmental portraits are best shot wide angle to include surroundings, while at other times I like to stand back and shoot tight with a telephoto to compress the elements in the image and deliver a more intimate feel. With an 18-135, you get a decent wide range and a fair telephoto capability. When shooting environmental portraits, I have a 17-40L on one body and a 100-400L image stabilizer on the other, so it's easy to switch from wide to tight as the situation demands it.

[Swimmer]

I know each monitor will display photos differently. But can you point out where the vignetting is bad on this photo?

[buzzsaw]

Quote:

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I know each monitor will display photos differently. But can you point out where the vignetting is bad on this photo

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You see the darkness in all four corners? It's kinda what you see Jonny doing to alot of his photo's on purpose, the difference being that Jonny is trying to do it and I'm certain he didn't want Vignetting in this photo. You could always crop it out or clone stamp it out if you wanted to fix it.

[carlcmc]

Thanks for the feedback. It was dark outside with no light coming in. I used lamps to try and light but still was having to bump up the iso and use a slower shutter speed. So my questions is vignetting worse when working in lower light conditions? If I would use higher iso and then correct with faster shutter speed would that be better?

[WCS]

Carl,

I looked up your lens on a reputable review site and it does have problems with vignetting at both ends of the zoom range. You can reduce this by shooting in the middle of the zoom range or by choosing a smaller aperture setting (higher f number). Of course, this may not give you the picture look your after. Shooting a little wider and cropping may be best. Otherwise, this lens was rated as one of the better consumer grade lenses available.

[carlcmc]

Oh, thanks so much for that info. I suppose for portrait shots then I will have to shoot at a more subdued range of perhap 70-90 mm then. I'd prefer to keep the aperture large for the shallow DOF. When I get home tonight I will experiment some more. When my 18-200 mm VR DX Nikor lens comes hopefully it will perform better. :-)