What did I do wrong? Please help! (Mature photo warning)

[pam]

I took these today with my Nikon D70. Natural light, no flash, converted the photos to Black & white...and they look all "digitized"...I don't know the technical term, but the digital form of grainy! Then when I looked back at the original, I noticed that it really looked the same way in color, I just didn't notice it. Can this be fixed at the lab? I need these prints soon!

[mjm]

did you save them as a gif? that is what it looks like to me..

[Sean Dempsey]

Provide your EXIF... ISO, shutter, aperture, yadda yadda...

[pam]

did you save them as a gif? that is what it looks like to me..

They were saved as jpeg....

[pam]

Provide your EXIF... ISO, shutter, aperture, yadda yadda...

Ok, the first one was shutter speed at 1/60 aperture F4.5 at 56mm focal length. ( I only have one lens for this camera right now, so I do what I can) And this is what else the camera is telling me about the shot... Potrait development, ISO 200, White Balance Auto, size quality L. Fine, Sharpness and tone On Auto, Saturation Normal, Matrix Metering, Mode exp. Auto. 0.0, Flash Mode Built in TTL...so maybe the little falsh did pop up on this one.

The second one is the same on everything except taken at a focal length of 65 mm.


Probably more info than you needed...but just in case. I practiced on my husband yesterday and everything looked fine ;) ...don't know what happened today.

[Peter_AUS]

Hi Pam,

I'm not much into skin photography, I'm no expert as well, but what I have seen mentioned is to make sure the model doesn't wear any clothing for a bout 1 hour prior to the shot, that way you don't get any marks from the clothing, hence the nicker lines you can see on the lower torso of the Model. Also make sure the heat is good enough so the model won't get goose bumps or start showing they are cold as that becomes very apparent in the skin colours. Is it Obvious that the main interest is the Tatoo (to me anyway), then focus should be on the Tatoo. I think you need a greater depth of field try f/8 to f/11 and also slower shutter speed (on a tripod with mirror lockup activated) to capture more light as the images seem a bit flat because of the lack of light (my opinion only). A place that has a lot of nude subjects posted is http://www.photosig.com under categories/exotic if you are looking at getting into that side of things. There are lots of people posting there and getting very good help and advice, not that you won't get that here from all of us as well. Just another resource.

You can still do quite a bit with the images and also need to learn to convert to B&W in other ways than you have with the image by the looks of it. I have had a quick fiddle with the images and am posting them up here as an example for you.

With Digital images you need to do some post processing of them as well. Like Unsharpen Mask if you have Photoshop at all. You need to have the white balance correct, so use a grey card, shoot the card to fill the frame under the same lighting condition and save that as your white balance and the camera will adjust according to that white balance, read up on that in your manual. You need to save the images as sRGB for the web as well, which can change the look of the image as well. Also if the image is RGB and posted to the web, that will make a difference to the way it is displayed in the web browser.

Instead of saying Mature Photo Warning, I think you can just say "Caution Nude images" that is more than acceptable on these forums. We used to have someone who showed naked pole dance posed images here a while back haven't seen him around in a while. Most people didn't get offended by them, and commented on them for the intention they were being posted, which was critique and advise.

Hope some of what I have said makes sense and helps you out.

[pam]

Hey! Thanks, that helps a bunch! The images look a lot better after you got a hold of them. And just a side note...I'm not into this kind of photography either....it was the most embarrassing hour of my life, I believe. A friend wanted me to do this for a present for her husband, and since we're friends, and she trusts me.....well, I did it. It will probably be the last time I do it....well, unless I decide to get a little crazy when my anniversary comes up, but I won't be posting those on this forum. Have a great day and thanks again!
Pam

Hi Pam,

I'm not much into skin photography, I'm no expert as well, but what I have seen mentioned is to make sure the model doesn't wear any clothing for a bout 1 hour prior to the shot, that way you don't get any marks from the clothing, hence the nicker lines you can see on the lower torso of the Model. Also make sure the heat is good enough so the model won't get goose bumps or start showing they are cold as that becomes very apparent in the skin colours. Is it Obvious that the main interest is the Tatoo (to me anyway), then focus should be on the Tatoo. I think you need a greater depth of field try f/8 to f/11 and also slower shutter speed (on a tripod with mirror lockup activated) to capture more light as the images seem a bit flat because of the lack of light (my opinion only). A place that has a lot of nude subjects posted is http://www.photosig.com under categories/exotic if you are looking at getting into that side of things. There are lots of people posting there and getting very good help and advice, not that you won't get that here from all of us as well. Just another resource.

You can still do quite a bit with the images and also need to learn to convert to B&W in other ways than you have with the image by the looks of it. I have had a quick fiddle with the images and am posting them up here as an example for you.

With Digital images you need to do some post processing of them as well. Like Unsharpen Mask if you have Photoshop at all. You need to have the white balance correct, so use a grey card, shoot the card to fill the frame under the same lighting condition and save that as your white balance and the camera will adjust according to that white balance, read up on that in your manual. You need to save the images as sRGB for the web as well, which can change the look of the image as well. Also if the image is RGB and posted to the web, that will make a difference to the way it is displayed in the web browser.

Instead of saying Mature Photo Warning, I think you can just say "Caution Nude images" that is more than acceptable on these forums. We used to have someone who showed naked pole dance posed images here a while back haven't seen him around in a while. Most people didn't get offended by them, and commented on them for the intention they were being posted, which was critique and advise.

Hope some of what I have said makes sense and helps you out.