Photographic Problem! Advice Needed Please.

[Mrs.Clooney]

I know some you are techno geeks, so I am hoping somebody can give me some guidance please.

I have a Nikon camera bought a few years ago. It was an up tp date camera at the time and I was really proud of my little purchase. It has macro for close up work plus zoom, but I am having a problem with the quality of photos it is producing. This always seems to have been an issue, but more so, now that I am trying to build up my professional photographic portfolio :irked:.

For example, I can take the same shots at almost the same time in the same place with the same lighting ...... and end up with 2 totally different quality pics. How is this happening? It has nothing to do with blurriness but rather the lighting as some photos look like they have been sprinkled with stardust and they sort of have a glittery effect to them when no glitter was used ?? It shows less so in the pics below because when I reduce the image size, it is less obvious. Trust me, the bigger images are very sparkly. This is a fairly recent Bridal makeover.

I did a makeover on my teenage daughter yesterday and the resulting photographs were hideous and looked nothing like her make-up in the flesh. I spent ages on the whole thing and was just so deflated with the results in the photos.

Any suggestion please on how to up the anti on my photographic work. I can't afford a new camera? What am I doing wrong?

 

[JANEY K]

You can try using a darker background as lighter backgrounds reflect the glare from your flash\lighting if this doesn't work and pictures are same grainy\sparkly effect ,you can ask a camera shop to check your filter hun
hth x

 

[Mrs.Clooney]

You can try using a darker background as lighter backgrounds reflect the glare from your flash\lighting if this doesn't work and pictures are same grainy\sparkly effect ,you can ask a camera shop to check your filter hun
hth x

Thanks Janey, The backgrounds don't seem to make a difference. Both light and dark backgrounds can go sparkley. I have some outdoor pics which do the same thing with a few amongst them which are fine.

Thanks for the hint about the filter.

 

[Kim Lawless]

I had a problem with this and yes, it looked like fairy dust had been sprinkled on me. It was only when I looked at them on my PC and not when they'd been printed. Something to do with the bigger the image the more fairy dust.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Were you using the flash on the camera? The sparkly-ness might be as a result of the direct flash; pro photographers with expensive kit use those flashes that fire backwards and reflect off umbrellas to give a more diffuse flash which should reduce the sparklies...

 

[Mrs.Clooney]

I had a problem with this and yes, it looked like fairy dust had been sprinkled on me. It was only when I looked at them on my PC and not when they'd been printed. Something to do with the bigger the image the more fairy dust.

Yes Kimmi, this is what is happening and it is only noticeable on my PC in larger format. It sort of disappears when I scale the picture size down using Infraview. Not really noticeable in the pics above. The first photo (slightly profile) is actually fine in large format. The second photo was taken 1 minute after the first in same conditions, but at the same size looks all sparkly ..... which would be okay if my model was meant to be a princess from a fairy tale!

Were you using the flash on the camera? The sparkly-ness might be as a result of the direct flash; pro photographers with expensive kit use those flashes that fire backwards and reflect off umbrellas to give a more diffuse flash which should reduce the sparklies...

Yes Ruth, I was using flash, but it happens without flash as well. I have some photos taken outdoors without flash and it still happens. It is doing my head in because it spoils what would otherwise be reasonable portfolio pics. Instead it looks like I've applied make-up using tonnes of titanium dioxide :irked: ...... not good for bridal!